The other side of Uganda’s ‘model’ refugee policy

The ratio of refugees to the local population is ideally 1:1 yet some locals talked to bemoan nearly being reduced to second class citizens. There also many who see no problem at all with the situation after all there is plenty of land.

In recent months, as the hunger wave hit most parts of the country, some locals in Adjumani were reported to sneak into the refugee camps and queue for food relief from World Food Programme (WFP).

Locals are not part of the food aid bargain, so they were always shown out. Worse still, as WFP the main provider of emergency food assistance, was coming to terms with budget shortfalls and spiraling refugee numbers, which eventually saw food rations slashed from 12kg to 6kg per person.

“Poverty in Adjumani is written on the foreheads. You don’t have to go searching for it,” the area MP Mark Angel Dulu says. “If assistance to refugees is not enough, just imagine what the rest of population has to go through.”

He said: “All attention is being paid to the refugees yet for a very long time the district has had its own challenges ranging from access to clean water, breakdown in health and education facilities, agriculture [the predominant income activity] has been struggling. Whether government (through Office of Prime Minister) or NGOs, they are all working for the refugees.”

The problem though, Mr Dulu noted, if you don’t balance investments in both the refugee and host communities “the two cannot live side by side because they are incompatible: just imagine what is happening that locals have to walk long distances to get water yet refugees have boreholes in their communities.”

In some refugee camps visited officials, however explained, that services are extended to prevent the refugees from straying far from the gazzated land which can breed more tensions.

Not all that glitters

Most qualified health workers employed by the districts, because government has a record of not paying well let alone in time, have cozied up by NGOs with deep pockets working to extend health services to the refugees. So are teachers, community service workers, among others, who were previously employed by the districts where camps are located.

“The communities might be living in harmony on the face of it, but deep down I am certain they are unhappy and this is something that is not reported about,” Mr Dulu noted. “There is a big gap that needs to be bridged.” The NRM legislator however partly blames the department of refugees in the Office of Prime Minister (OPM) which he said, has also at a basic level also failed to engagement local government in all districts hosting refugees.

Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees’s minister Hillary Onek, was not readily available for a comment on the matter citing endless meetings.

Such is the situation in Yumbe district, home to Bid Bidi resettlement camp, believed to be the largest in the world, in Moyo and Maracha districts.  In Lamwo, there were also several reports of host communities attempting to register as refugees to enjoy some of the perks they only hear about.

Yumbe for example does not have any single paved road nor is yet to be connected to the electricity grid. The main town is beehive of activity, thanks to NGO and aid agency offices, from where their trucks mostly SUVs and 4WDs speed away to and from Bidi Bidi, leaving behind clouds of dust. I tried but lost count of the signposts publicizing the different NGOs working on the refugee situation.

Denis Otema, a shop attendant and resident in Yumbe town for more almost a decade now, told this newspaper during a recent stopover that “Of course we see what is happening but even then, we know government has never interested in this part of the country.”

“When there were no refugees hosted in our backyard, this place was not as lively as it is,” Mr Otema said. “For some of us who operate businesses this is good for us but at the same time very disheartening to live a life of struggling with basic social amenities and when government shows presence, they are instead interested in refugees forgetting it is us who offer our land to host them.”

Red flags raised

Down south, district authorities in Kibaale district have already raised red flag with OPM about decline in health services, especially at the only Kagadi General hospital and moreover situated far from the district headquarters, as result of relentless referral of refugees from Burundi and DR Congo settled in Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement located in nearby in Kamwenge district. The camp is home to nearly 70,000 refugees.

According to the 2014 census results, Kibaale is the third highly populated district in Uganda, with an estimated population of 788,714. With a fast-growing population, the district has for long been grappling with poor health systems and facilities, added to the poor road network.

The senior resettlement officer in OPM, Mr Charles Bafaki, on Thursday at the panel discussion for the World Refugee Day held at Imperial Royale, defended that notwithstanding current budgetary constraints most efforts are geared towards promoting co-existence between refugees and host communities.

“Settling refugees should do no harm but that said there’s bound to be some pressures,” Mr Bafaki noted.

Uganda is hailed globally as one of the best places to be for refugees. It is a story that international media houses like tell, usually writing in scintillating detail of how, after embracing the refugees are given plots of land for settlement and gardening, respectively.

Refugees who arrived in the early days of the received plots that stretched 50x50 metres. Today, the standard is 30x30 metres, with some newer settlements even opening with 25x25-metre plots. This doesn’t happen elsewhere in the world.

During his three-country Africa tour in November 2015, Pope Francis said the “world looks to Africa as a continent of hope” praising Uganda as an example for how other countries can welcome refugees and offer them a new opportunity for life.

In fact, the 2006 Refugee Act, grants all rights but voting to refugees and asylum seekers: from movement, education, access to healthcare, and expression.

The World Bank, in the 2016 study titled “An Assessment of Uganda’s Progressive Approach to Refugee Management”, warned that most refugee-impacted areas are at risk due to underlying poverty, vulnerability, and limited resilience to shock further exacerbated by the presence of refugees.”

Through the Bank’s international Development Association, the  concessional funding arm to low-income and post-conflict countries, Uganda will receive $50m (Shs177b) geared to projects that will mitigate the impact of refugees on hosting communities. The total package is about $175m (Shs620b) but will be also spread out to Ethiopia and Djibouti, also hosting refugees.

The needs are huge on both fronts—assisting host communities and refugees in camps, aid agency Oxfam’s country director Peter Kamalingin, said in an interview in Kampala.

“The framework that Uganda has: to receive, register and resettle refugees is well-known to be progressive but what is in for population who offer their land for this cause, and I don’t think enough is being done to sensitize them to realise who this is important and needs to be done.”

At the current trend of influx of South Sudan refugees their number will hit 1 million, Mr Kamalign said, “but we do not see a balance in investments.”

“It is no secret that government is ineffective in investing in social systems but in districts that accepted refugees I think efforts should be scaled up so that cohesion flows easily. There may not be clashes but that doesn’t mean things are okay. Besides, there needs to be a clear-cut connect between the central and local governments.”

The door will remain open

At a workshop held on Tuesday to discuss rolling out the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), a forward-looking initiative designed to support the ongoing response to refugees and host communities in a more sustainable way, Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda revealed that Uganda will continue to maintain an open door policy to give refuge to people fleeing danger in upholding its international obligation

“..as the influx of people continues, we need to also focus on the long-term development needs of refugees, give them hope and treat them with respect and dignity,” said Dr  Ruhakana noted.

The main problem though is the overreliance on international aid funneled through the different aid agencies that extend assistance to the refugees. Each agency seems to have a clear-cut role, from water, hygiene and sanitation, food relief, health, children and women matters, and each works with a specific work and spending plan. Funding for the activities is replenished as it diminishes but to only what is deemed to be important.

A senior government official who declined to be named to talk freely on the matter,  told this newspaper one of the main problems at hand, that no one seems bothered about, is that currently the mandate over refugees is borne by OPM with little or no input at all of other critical government agencies like ministry of Land, Local Government, Water and Environment.

“What this does is there is no coordinated planning to establish lasting infrastructure that can benefit both refugees and the host communities but most importantly stand the test of time when the refugees are repatriated in future,” the official said.

“For example if UNICEF or UNHCR is going to build a school, ministry of Education should be party to this process to first make an assessment of how host communities stand to benefit even when the refugees leave. If World Vision plans to drill a borehole and put up a water pump somewhere, ministry of Water and Local government should be part of the process for purposes of benefiting locals who struggle with water every day: this something that never happens at all.”

In fact, the current policy framework needs to be revised, because Uganda will for a long time continue to be a hub for refugees.

UNHCR’s communications officer Rocco Nuri, said last year they received only 40 percent of funding which means “being narrow in scope” in planned activities.

“As the year started we were planning for about 400,000 refugees now we have more than excess which means we cannot do much.” Mr Nuri explained, because even for the refugees priority is currently only given to providing basic needs such as food and health care.  “Prioritizing is continuous exercise. The good thing is they can access public facilities used by the local communities.”

A 2013 National Health Accounts (NHA) survey, an international technique for tracking financial flows in a country’s health sector, showed that government’s annual per capita health expenditure stands at $11 (Shs28, 000) or roughly about $1 a month—far below international minimum thresholds.

Therefore it is until you visit the said public facilities, schools and hospitals in Moyo, Lamwo, Adjumani, Yumbe and Maracha, that you realise how pitiful the general situation is—for both refugees and locals. 

Sadly, government seems preoccupied with capturing attention of the rest of the world with its open door policy for political capital. However, while the treatment of refugees deserves praise: the million dollar question that lingers is, what is in for Ugandans?