Local integration as a durable solution to refugees in Uganda

Abstract

With Uganda having more refugees staying longer than anticipated, the researcher set to explore whether locally integrating them into the community can be a lasting solution. This study focused on the form of integration called de jure integration – which is primarily about national belonging; it is achieved by renouncing refugee status and obtaining new citizenship in the host country. It is a deliberate government move by law or policy to integrate the refugees. This is distinguished from de facto integration where the refugees find ways of integrating themselves into local communities but retain the refugee status. In the latter case, refugees are not in physical danger and do not live under the threat of refoulement. But such refugees face difficulties that come with their status of not being recognised or having no citizenship of the host country, i.e., their legal status continues to be insecure and temporary. The study setting was Kamwenge and Kiryandongo districts which host two settlement areas – Rwamwanja and Kiryandongo respectively – with a combined population of 150,000 refugees most of them in the protracted situation category. The study found that Uganda is nowhere near achieving local integration of refugees in respect to de jure integration. Factors limiting the intervention are numerous, chief among them being the fact that the Ugandan laws don’t allow or make it extremely hard for refugees to acquire citizenship and /or naturalisation, a key ingredient for de jure integration to happen. Another factor was that allowing integration to the level of acquiring citizenship is a political issue. Government officials said locals might construe it to mean “recruitment of voters for the incumbent”. But there is the issue of acceptance. The researcher found that many in the local community felt refugees were favoured more than them and this provided a hostile environment for full integration to take place. Insecurity of land tenure created suspicion among host communities with respondents saying they feared refugees integrating would result in their land being taken. The study recommended that country aggressively seek more resources in terms of funds to go into refugees’ responses to help both hosts and refugees cope with influx, fund massive sensitisation programs on the positive contribution of refugees and address perennial issues like the land tenure insecurity by resettling landless hosts but also helping hosts to acquire land titles for their land to assure them of security. Local laws can be softened to allow citizenship for the refugees who may want for full integration to happen.