USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) Grant for Sustainable Refugee Solutions in Uganda

Uganda hosts the largest population of refugees in Africa, which currently includes over 1.43 million people who have fled conflict, political instability, and human rights abuses. Although the recent focus has been on South Sudanese and Congolese refugees, Uganda has hosted refugees from neighboring countries for nearly 50 years and currently hosts refugees from over nine countries.

With the understanding that protracted crises often lead to increased challenges that cannot be tackled through a humanitarian lens alone, the Government of Uganda adopted the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) in 2017. The CRRF provides a framework for “a more systematic and sustainable response that benefits both refugees and the communities that host them.” The CRRF provides an organizing framework for advancing humanitarian-development nexus approaches. Although lessons to improve implementation of the CRRF abound, the few programs that have sought to address the nexus space have not yielded enough data to build a convincing evidence base regarding what effective interventions within a nexus approach look like. 

As the largest donor of humanitarian and development assistance in Uganda, USAID recognizes the need, as well as the opportunities under Uganda’s liberal refugee policies, for stakeholders to work together to further empower both refugees and their host communities and to find better long-term solutions that support displaced populations affected by protracted crises. USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance has already provided more than $368 million for refugee emergency food assistance since 2016; however, it is acknowledged that indefinite emergency assistance is not a solution for longer-term needs. Severe ration cuts, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other recent shocks have further demonstrated that new solutions are needed to help empower vulnerable refugee and refugee-hosting households to be able to better meet their own basic needs, and further engage in livelihoods and economic growth. 

USAID plans to address these needs by exploring and contributing to evidence of how inclusive push-pull market strengthening approaches[1] can decrease vulnerability among refugees and host communities. Without robust evidence-based models that demonstrate a pathway for self-reliance under a nexus approach, humanitarian assistance will continue to be needed in perpetuity in protracted crises.