Participating in development? Refugee protection, politics and developmental approaches to refugee management in Uganda

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 26, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 351-367

  Kaiser, Tania ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

MANAGEMENT PRACTICE; REFUGEE; SECURITY THREAT; SOCIAL POLICY;

AFRICA; EAST AFRICA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; UGANDA;

EID: 27844471180     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0143659042000339155     Document Type: Review

References (45)

1. J Crisp, No Solutions in Sight: The Problem of Protracted Refugee Situations in Africa, UNHCR New Issues in Refugee Research Working Paper No 75, 2003.
2. UNHCR Geneva, Global Refugee Trends, 2003.
3. As set out in the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees, 1951, and the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1967. International human rights instruments relating to non-refugee populations also, of course, apply. Relevant instruments include but are not limited to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966.
4. A Jamal, Minimum Standards and Essential Needs in a Protracted Refugee Situation: A Review of the UNHCR Programme in Kakuma, Kenya, UNHCR Evaluation Report, 2000.
5. For example, BE Harrell-Bond, Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986;
6. Harrell-Bond The experience of refugees as recipients of aid', in A Ager (ed), Refugees: Perspectives on the Experience of Forced Migration, London: Pinter, 1999, pp 136-168;
7. R Black, 'Putting refugees in camps', Forced Migration Review, 2, 1998, pp 4-7;
8. and J Hyndman, Managing Displacement: Refugees and the Politics of Humanitarianism, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.
9. See, for an earlier example from Uganda, K Neefjes, 'Participatory review in chronic instability: the experience of the Ikafe refugee settlement programme, Uganda', Humanitarian Practice Network Paper 29, Overseas Development Institute, London, 1999;
10. and L Payne, Rebuilding Communities in a Refugee Settlement: A Casebook from Uganda, Oxford: Oxfam, 1998.
11. J Crisp, Mind the Gap! UNHCR, Humanitarian Assistance and the Development Process, UNHCR New Issues in Refugee Research Working Paper No 43, 2001;
12. and R Gorman (ed), Refugee Aid and Development: Theory and Practice, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993.
13. For example, K Jacobsen, The Forgotten Solution: Local Integration for Refugees in Developing Countries, New Issues in Refugee Research Working Paper No 45, 2001.
14. J Macrae, Aiding Peace...and War: UNHCR, Returnee Reintegration and the Relief-Development Debate, UNHCR New Issues in Refugee Research Working Paper No 14, 1999.
15. UNHCR, Global Refugee Trends.
16. World Bank, 'Bank and IMF support additional debt relief for Uganda amounting to $1.3 billion', at http://www.worldbank.org/hipc/country- cases/uganda/uganda.html, accessed 2 May 2002.
17. 'The humanitarian crisis in Uganda is far from over. Uganda continues to face funding shortfalls because it is widely, but erroneously, perceived as a success story in rehabilitation and recovery. This shifts attention away from the ongoing complex humanitarian crisis.' UNOCHA Geneva, Consolidated Appeals Process Uganda, 2003.
18. See also Human Rights Watch, LRA Conflict in Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan, 2002, at http://hrw.org/press/2002/10/ugandal029-bck.htm.
19. International Crisis Group (ICG), Northern Uganda: Understanding and Solving the Conflict, ICG Africa Report No 77. Nairobi/Brussels;
20. Refugee Law Project, Behind the Violence: Causes, Consequences, and the Search for Solutions to the Conflict in Northern Uganda, Refugee Law Project Working Paper No 11, 2004.
21. A Kiapi, 'The legal status of refugees in Uganda: a critical study of legislative instruments', in AGG Gingyera-Pinycwa, Uganda and the Problem of Refugees, Kampala: Makerere University Press, 1998.
22. Crisp, No Solutions in Sight.
23. UNHCR Kampala/Office of the Prime Minister, Self Reliance for Refugee Hosting Areas in Moyo, Arua and Adjumani Districts 1999-2003, 1999.
24. S Dryden-Peterson & Lucy Hovil, Local Integration as a Durable Solution: Refugees, Host Populations and Education in Uganda, UNHCR New Issues in Refugee Research Working Paper No 93, 2003.
25. S Dryden-Peterson & Lucy Hovil, Local Integration as a Durable Solution: Refugees, Host Populations and Education in Uganda, 2003.
26. UNHCR/Office of the Prime Minister, Self Reliance for Refugee Hosting Areas, p 10.
27. The proposal refers directly to the districts in which the largest concentrations of refugees are to be found, namely Adjumani, Moyo and Arua. The two settlements which will be discussed below, Acholpii and Kiryandongo, are in Pader and Masindi, respectively. Kiryandongo, as a mature settlement whose inhabitants have been allocated land for farming, has nevertheless been targeted for self-reliance for some time.
28. Poverty Action Elimination Plan (PEAP) (Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development), cited in Dryden-Peterson & Hovil, Local Integration as a Durable Solution.
29. T Kaiser, The UNHCR and withdrawal from Kiryandongo: anatomy of a handover', Refugee Survey Quarterly, 21 (1&2), 2002, pp 201-227.
30. T Kaiser, 'Experience and consequences of insecurity in a refugee populated area in northern Uganda', Refugee Survey Quarterly, 19 (1), 2000, pp 38-53.
31. Kaiser, The UNHCR and withdrawal from Kiryandongo'.
32. BBC News online, '"Race against time" for Uganda refugees'. at http://news.bbc.co.Uk/1/hi/world/africa/2183311.stm, accessed 9 August 2002.
33. The population of Achol-pii had numbered around 24000 and UNHCR estimated that it moved up to 31 000 people to Kiryandongo. Some of the refugees fled back to Sudan, while others almost certainly moved to other parts of Uganda. The discrepancy in numbers is explained by the authorities as being a function of 'recycling', the illegal movement of refugees from northern settlements other than Achol-pii and as the fact that large numbers of idps may have taken advantage of the evacuation from Lira to Masindi.
34. With the exception of one refugee NGO worker who invited himself along to the site inspection.
35. For example, the Settlement Commandant at Kyangwali camp in Hoima gets a much more mixed press from refugees and observers. Not only has he been accused of abusing some refugees, but his management style is reportedly authoritarian and he appears to be antipathetic to the idea of sharing power.
36. Such 'agreement' appears to have been news to some of the UNHCR personnel listening to the speech. It was difficult to find anyone in Uganda who disagreed with the refugees' view that Yumbe and Arua were unsuitable for refugee settlement on security grounds. The experience of an earlier refugee population who had been repeatedly attacked by rebel groups at the Ikafe refugee settlement near Yumbe town in 1996-97 was, predictably, recalled with trepidation. See Payne, Rebuilding Communities in a Refugee Settlement.
37. In late November 2002 The New Vision newspaper reported that The Uganda National Rescue Front II (UNRF II) rebels recently held a presidential envoy, Brig Kale Kaihura, at gunpoint at their camp in Bidi-Bidi, Yumbe'. B Mugisha & G Matsiko, 'Brig Kaihura harassed', The New Vision, 26 November 2002.
38. It seems likely that these were members of local defence militias rather than policemen.
39. 8000 of the group had already been moved to Hoima district in western Uganda in September 2002, a move that was accepted by the refugee leadership based on its assessment that the area was secure.
40. The period immediately following the relocation was a difficult one for the refugees. Adequate reception and infrastructural arrangements were not in place thanks to the haste with which they were transferred, and conditions in the two settlements were reportedly extremely poor. By 2004 the situation had stablised to a large extent and the refugees relocated to Madi-Okolo were said to be settling in well. The situation in Ikafe was more precarious, with refugees continuing to have security and other concerns. Personal communication, UNHCR officials August 2004.
41. UNHCR/Office of the Prime Minister, Self Reliance for Refugee Hosting Areas, pp 10, 13.
42. G Goodwin-Gill, 'Refugee identity and protection's fading prospect', in F Nicholson & P Twomey (eds), Refugee Rights and Realities: Evolving International Concepts and Regimes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
43. Of the two sites selected for refugee settlement, one at Ikafe had previously been used to accommodate refugees but was in a bad state of disrepair by 2003, the other was reportedly entirely undeveloped farmland owned by Moses Ali, Deputy Prime Minister in the NRM government.
44. K Jacobsen, 'Can refugees benefit the state? Refugee resources and African statebuilding', Journal of Modern African Studies, 40 (4), 2002, pp 577-596.
45. World Bank, 'Uganda: World Bank approves second Poverty Reduction Support Credit and Northern Uganda Social Action Fund', at http://web.worldbank.org/ WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS, accessed 24 July 2002.