Experiences of local intergration among refugees in nakivale refugee settlement –Isingiro District, Western Uganda

Abstract

Background: The fact that voluntary repatriation and resettlement are less embraced by most refugee host countries leaves local integration as arguably the most reliable durable solution that the 25 million current refugees in the world can benefit from. Although local integration has been associated with negative effects on host country's social sectors, they are only minimal and are significantly outweighed by the positive effects on a host country’s social sector. The said positive effects can be realized with carefully planned and well-managed refugee integration, whose first step is to locally integrate the refugees. However, that does not seem to be the case as less than 1% of the available refugees have been integrated with their host countries. The main purpose of this study was to explore the enablers and constraints of local integration among refugees in the Nakivale refugee settlement. Methods: This study employed a phenomenological study design, to study the experiences of integration among refugees residing in the Nakivale refugee settlement in the Isingiro district. The sample size consisted of 7 FGDs, 12 in-depth interviews, and 7 key informant interviews; all determined using the data saturation principle. Nakivale refugee settlement was purposively selected. In-depth interviewees and key informants were purposively sampled, while a convenience sample of households was made, in order to obtain focus group participants. For purposes of triangulation, this study relied on three data collection methods to collect the required data from the respondents, they were; focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and key informant interviews. The tools were therefore focus group discussion, in-depth interview, and key informant interview guides. Results: The refugees’ experiences in trying to locally integrate with the communities were in five categories namely; experiences with interaction with host communities, negative perception of host community towards refugees, discrimination by the host community, aggression by host communities, language shortcomings when interacting with locals and discrimination by authorities. The enablers and constraints of local integration at an individual level included; language (ability to speak the indigenous language), marital status and being parents, nationality, age of the refugee, gender, religion, and attachment to home country. However, of all the seven factors, four happened to be prominent going by their frequency of occurrence. They included language (ability to speak the indigenous language), age, nationality, and gender. Interpersonal characteristics were pointed out as being enablers and constraints of local integration; they include; settlement policies, the influence of authorities, the influence of settlement authorities, and attitude of the host community. However, of all these characteristics, only one, namely the attitude of host communities happened to be recurring and thus a more important constraint of local integration at the interpersonal level. Conclusion: The commonest experiences of local integration are interpersonal in nature with only one category of experience being an individual. The interpersonal experiences, in this case, are all related to the way the host community treats refugees. The personal experience is only about lingual limitations. The enablers and constraints of local integration are both individual and interpersonal in nature; with the individual ones being comparatively more prominent.