{"id":34290,"date":"2016-05-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ready-for-feedback3.com\/shape-history\/fmr\/clements-shoffner-zamore\/"},"modified":"2025-04-01T07:14:04","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T12:14:04","slug":"clements-shoffner-zamore","status":"publish","type":"fmr_content","link":"https:\/\/www.fmreview.org\/ar\/solutions\/clements-shoffner-zamore\/","title":{"rendered":"Uganda\u2019s approach to refugee self-reliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Headlines and hashtags speak of the refugee \u2018crisis\u2019 as if the mere presence of people from another country poses a threat. Even among humanitarians, refugees are often understood as a \u2018burden\u2019 to be shared. This rhetoric obscures the reality that refugees\u2019 ability to contribute to the societies where they are living depends precisely upon those factors most outside their control: the policies of host governments; the availability of public services; the health of local and regional economies; the budgets of humanitarian organisations; the priorities of international development actors; national and regional security; and so on. More often than not, these factors \u2013 individually or together \u2013 deny refugees the very rights and opportunities that enable people to take care of themselves. As the heads of the United Nations development and refugee agencies recently explained, refugees\u2019 vulnerability is not inevitable; rather, it stems from circumstances that are \u201cimposed upon [them] and reinforced by the world\u2019s incomplete response.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

But the opposite effect is also possible. Properly aligned, the above-mentioned factors can empower refugees to benefit<\/strong> their host communities and not to burden them. This is no surprise. Nationals and refugees are similarly affected by local and regional development challenges, such as inadequate access to health care or education. Addressing those challenges benefits everyone in the area, like a rising tide lifts all boats.<\/p>\n

Such enabling environments are tragically rare. Uganda, where refugees have consistently found asylum since the Second World War, offers an important exception. Today, Uganda hosts more than 500,000 refugees. More than 100,000 arrived in 2015, mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and South Sudan, where conflict and instability foreclose the possibility of repatriation any time soon.<\/p>\n

Uganda has chosen inclusion over marginalisation; rather than coerce refugees into camps, Uganda upholds their rights to work, to attend school and to move freely. And it has striven to do so sustainably, by cultivating an environment that supports the self-reliance and resilience of entire communities, including the refugees among them. The three pillars of its refugee policy are:<\/p>\n