State intervention and management of refugees’ crisis in the great lakes region: A case of Uganda

Abstract

The study was about state intervention and management of refugees’ crisis in the great lakes region: a case of Uganda. The study was guided by the following objectives: To find out the causes of refugee crisis in Uganda, to find out the challenges faced by Uganda in managing refugees crisis and to establish the strategies that can be adopted to harmonize refugee crisis in Uganda. This study focused on the areas where refugees are living in Uganda that is Rwamwanja refugee settlement in Kamwenge District in order to find out how the state is responding towards the refugees crisis. This study made use of a case study and a cross sectional study design and this was because the researcher wanted to gather data once over a period of time in order to answer the research questions. The study population was 92 and a sample size of 75 respondents which was determined by the Soloven’s formula. The study discovered that, Uganda as a state has come up with a number of assistance programs in order to intervene in refugees’ crisis and it has to tried and helped refugees access their basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing. It is evident that many activities have led to the refuges crisis in the Great Lakes Region and these include the following civil wars, inadequate food, harsh climates, and lack of legal routs to safety, humanitarian rights violation and natural disasters. The study also found out that, challenges faced during refugees’ crisis management include: financial burdens, poor health facilities, inadequate funds, high level of corruption, political tensions and security alerts and lack of legal Protection. The study also discovered that, strategies which can be adopted to deal with refugees crisis include the following: Establishment of refugees crisis management ministry, aligning humanitarian aid to refugees based activities, funds mobilization through fundraising, facilitating and opening up educational opportunities, developing awareness campaigns for refugees host communities and resettlement of refugees to a better areas. The study recommended that, there is need for strengthened collaborative efforts between government and UNHCR and other partners to ensure increased services availability to the refugees in order to ensure effectiveness in refugees’ crisis management. The government should allocate a big percentage to refugees’ crisis management specifically in each financial year budget and its implementation should be monitored by officials from the state and other partners. And there should be also much emphasis on programmes like voluntary participation for all stakeholders including host communities and refugees themselves.