Using Land to Promote Refugee Self-Reliance in Uganda

Abstract

Around the world, the number of people displaced from their homes continues to increase due to political conflict and climate change. The Ugandan government’s policy for settling refugees shifts the focus from seeing refugees as humanitarian obligations to recognizing that refugee settlements bring improved services and infrastructure that can serve both refugees and residents of the host communities. A key aspect of this policy is to provide refugees with land use rights, so they are able to achieve “self-reliance”. This research investigates (1) the role of planning in establishing the physical layout of Bidi Bidi, Uganda’s largest integrated settlement, (2) the host community’s rationale for allowing refugees access to their land, and (3) how refugees used this land. Based on interviews, participant observation, GIS analysis, and document analysis, we learned how refugees altered the settlement’s layout to better meet their needs, the unintended consequences of large- scale deforestation on the most vulnerable, and the limitations of the land-based approach to achieve self-reliance. These findings suggest expanding the avenues to achieve self-reliance, improving “integration” of service provision between refugees and residents of the host community, and protecting the area’s environment to maintain needed resources.

Enhancing Understanding Through Data Visualization: What Can Available Data Reveal About Access to Energy in Displacement Contexts on the African Continent?

“…An example of this is Uganda, where refugees are provided with a pot of land to support self-reliance. Over time size of the plots of lands given to refugees decrease as less land in the settlement areas is available [69]. Contextual limitations, such as the available amount of biomass for cooking, can also lead to distributional challenges with increasing numbers of displaced persons hosted.…”

Enhancing Understanding through Data Visualization: What Can Available Data Reveal about Access to Energy in Displacement Contexts on the African Continent?

“…An example of this is Uganda, where refugees are provided with a plot of land to support self-reliance. Over time, the size of the plots of land given to refugees decreases as less land in the settlement areas is available [69]. Contextual limitations, such as the available amount of biomass for cooking, can also lead to distributional challenges with increasing numbers of displaced persons hosted.…”

Refugee and Migrant Integration in Urban Spatial Structures and City Development: Case Study of Busan, South Korea

“…The How the World Views Migration Report (2015) of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) shows that majority of the survey respondents in major world regions (with a few exceptions in Europe) supported immigration to either remain the same or increase [9]. In addition, in terms of humanitarian planning, due to increasing instances of protracted displacements, local integration and self-settlement in urban areas have been considered complex but a future solution [5,[10][11][12].…”

“…Thus, campscapes provide urban citizenship to outcasts and outsiders and influence the local socio-economic, political, physical, and legal conditions of a city [37]. Research in African countries has shown that local integration and self-settlement in urban areas are viable solutions, as refugees gain economic self-sufficiency [38,39] and bring urban services that serve both refugees and host communities [12]. Thus, despite varied research on shifting urban dynamics due to migrant integration, little attention has been given to understanding its influence on urban frameworks and vice versa [40].…”