- November 2025
One man’s story encapsulates the contradictions at the heart of responses to climate-induced migration, which demand resilience but deny refugees the means to shape their own futures. A more imaginative, people-centred approach is urgently needed.
In April, 2025, I sat with a man named Chance (name changed to protect his identity) in Mahega zone, Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement, south-western Uganda. He had fled his home in Ishasha, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), eight years previously after rebels razed it to the ground. When I arrived, I found that the roof of Chance’s modest house had just been torn off by a brutal hailstorm that had swept through the zone two days earlier. This came on the heels of a prolonged dry spell that had lasted over five months.
Curious to know if this was connected to climate change-induced extreme weather occurrences, I asked him about what seasons had looked like in Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement before, and whether he had observed any changes over the years that he had lived in the settlement. He told me that seasons are no longer behaving as they used to: “The rains delay, and when they come, they come like they are angry. They come with a lot of force and end up washing everything away and destroying crops and property.” Wanting to know more, I asked if anyone or any organisation had assisted him in rebuilding:
“No person or organisation has come to help me in these difficult circumstances. I was lucky that I have some small savings in our village Savings and Credit Corporative group. That is where I went and borrowed some money that I am going to use to buy new iron sheets to rebuild my house and restore the roof that was blown away,” he told me.
I then asked him about his dreams and wishes going forward. He hesitated at first but after some thought, he told me that he wished to have a more resilient, permanent house, one that could stand up to the increasingly violent winds and rains. I asked him whether such a dream was possible to achieve and he answered in the affirmative. He reminded me, however, that the land on which he has built his current house does not belong to him because refugees are not allowed to buy land in Uganda. I asked him whether he knew that he could acquire land through land lease, and he said that he did not have money and did not know how to acquire lease agreements. He also added that in the settlement, refugees had been instructed to put up mud houses or if they were to use bricks, they were to make sure that the bricks were unburnt. This is because refugees are supposed to build temporary not permanent houses.
Chance’s story and the challenges he has with owning land and building a safer house for his family, one whose roof would not easily be blown off by hailstorms and strong winds next time, struck at the heart of the contradiction in today’s displacement response system.
Firstly, in Uganda, refugees who cannot afford to survive on their own in urban areas like Kampala are sent to live in remote isolated areas, in what we have creatively called ‘refugee settlements’. In reality, they have not evolved much from the infamous ‘isolation camps’; the government representative who heads these settlements is called a camp ‘commandant’ to this day. Secondly, we call them ‘settlements’ but deny people the right to settle. We encourage resilience, then place legal and structural barriers in the way of long-term survival strategies.
Now, climate change is not coming, it is already here. In places like Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement, where the displaced are disproportionately affected, it is laying bare the fragility and dishonesty of our systems. Droughts, floods and hailstorms are all colliding with years of long-term displacement, creating crises within crises. Yet we respond with the same templates, the same short-term projects, and the same outsider-led log frames and theories of change. Many INGOs and host governments are now very vocal about donor cuts to humanitarian aid but very few are talking about the need to end global refugee encampment policies that keep refugees boxed in isolated, climate change-prone areas for decades.
Let me be clear: from my work with Cohere since 2021, building equitable, trust-based partnerships with refugee-led grassroots leaders across Africa, and from growing up in Kisoro; a community that has long hosted refugees fleeing conflict in DR-Congo and Rwanda; I have seen firsthand that displaced people in Uganda do not want free money.
Most refugee leaders I have talked to are unfazed by the decline in humanitarian aid that some of us are quick to point out these days. Instead, they want access – to tools, to decision-making spaces and to rights that are equal to those of the rest of the population in their host countries. They want full integration, or at least a clear path to integration, that would allow them to access better land, easily move away from drought and flood-prone remote areas and acquire national citizenship, especially those who have been living, for decades, in the country.
What is even more hopeful is that, in spite of all odds, refugees are generally already organising. They just need support from host governments, donors and philanthropic partners to back their agency. I encounter refugee-led agricultural cooperatives, financial associations and small enterprises that are building resilience with whatever they can access in refugee settlements across East and Central Africa. For instance, the Climate Resilience Collective and the Sustainable Agriculture Collective, bring together over 21 refugee-led organisations across Kenya, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Uganda. They are responding directly to food insecurity and livelihood challenges in the face of climate change. Yet these organisations often operate in the shadows, marginalised in donor ecosystems that continue to privilege large INGOs and high-level strategies cooked up in capital cities far from the frontlines.
Thinking about all this reminds me of an old African saying, “You cannot send a child to the river, then forbid him from stepping in the water”. We ask displaced people to be resilient, then deny them the means to build that resilience. All this then brings me to the question of what would it look like if we took a different approach, one rooted in equity, access and honesty?
First, host governments must reform land and housing policies in protracted displacement contexts. Refugees, especially those displaced for decades, should be allowed to build and own permanent homes. Without this, resilience in the face of climate-induced extreme weather events like those in Rwamwanja will remain a distant dream for the thousands of vulnerable refugee households.
Second, donors and INGOs must reimagine their roles, not as ‘saviours’ or fixers or sole implementers, but as enablers of leadership from within these communities, whenever they think of implementing or resourcing climate change-related programmes, especially in the refugee space. Let refugee-led and grassroot organisations lead. Let them manage climate mitigation and adaptation funds. Let them define priorities based on lived realities. Donors should also invest in relational, justice and rights-based approaches when engaging with both the host governments and refugees. For instance, they must stop depoliticising the problems that refugee communities in host countries like Uganda are facing.
Yet, despite global recognition for its hospitality toward refugees, Uganda continues to follow a form of global refugee encampment, with some modifications. Refugees are confined to remote settlements that are increasingly experiencing massive deforestation and land degradation, as competition for small, fixed plots of government-allocated land intensifies. They are also denied the right to leave these settlements, buy land, or settle elsewhere in the country. Further donor funding for Uganda’s refugee response should therefore be linked to discussions with the government about clear pathways to citizenship, integration, and full rights for refugees who have lived in Uganda for decades, giving them the freedom to move from settlements that can feel like open-air prisons to areas less vulnerable to the destructive impacts of climate change.
Third, we must mainstream financial inclusion in displacement settings. Refugees need access to affordable credit, savings and insurance services. Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) are a great starting point, but there is also a need to open up tailored formal banking and microfinance systems to displaced populations to spur business growth and self-reliance. I have seen very many refugee entrepreneurs in refugee settlements in Uganda who are eager to scale their ideas but face financial constraints in terms of affordable and available credit. For instance, at the time that Chance’s house was destroyed by a hailstorm, no formal banking institution had officially opened a branch in Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement. This is despite the settlement hosting over 100,000 refugees and asylum seekers. Meanwhile, instead of engaging the private sector to bring such commercial banks into refugee spaces, governments and INGOs focus more on unending humanitarian aid to refugees, which as we know now, is unsustainable.
Finally, we must abandon the outdated assumption that displacement is temporary. Climate change is reshaping migration and settlement patterns in irreversible ways. Displacement response systems must adapt to this new reality, not with slogans, but with structural shifts.
When I left Chance’s home, he walked with me to the edge of the muddy path. “I will rebuild,” he said. “Because I must. My children must get a shelter.” That, right there, is resilience. Not the kind we theorise about in air-conditioned offices. But the real kind, the kind forged by necessity, held together with borrowed money, and driven by a stubborn will to survive.
If we truly want to build climate resilience in displacement settings, we must start there. Not with policies, but with people. Not with plans, but with proximity. And not with pity, but with meaningful partnership with refugees and refugee leaders, built on human connection and enduring trust-based relationships.
And maybe then, when the wind blows next time, Chance’s roof will stay on.
Micheal Gumisiriza
Programme Lead, Cohere
m.gumisiriza@wearecohere.org
www.wearecohere.org/
linkedin.com/in/micheal-gumisiriza-21a28b116