Updated October 2026: this post was first published in March 2019 to announce the study. We have expanded it with a summary drawn from the study’s summary report.
Uganda hosts more than 1.1 million refugees, mainly from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and its model is widely cited: refugees can work, use education and health services on a par with nationals, and live on plots of land rather than in camps. On behalf of the EU Trust Fund consortium of DRC, CEFORD, Save the Children and ZOA, which implements the support programme for refugees and host communities in Northern Uganda (SPRS-NU), we asked a narrower question. Do integrated, shared services help refugees in protracted displacement integrate, and what do they mean for relations with the communities that host them?
How the study was done
The research was qualitative and centred on South Sudanese refugees and their hosts in and around the Adjumani and Rhino Camp settlements, with education and livelihoods as the two examples of shared services. It included 12 focus group discussions with refugees and 12 with host communities, alongside key informant interviews, and 85 interviews and discussions with government (including the Office of the Prime Minister and district leadership in Adjumani and Arua), local leaders, aid organisations, business groups, donors and researchers. Four operational workshops in Kampala, Rhino Camp and Adjumani brought together 110 participants. The study focuses on socio-economic integration, did not cover South Sudanese refugees in towns, and drew host views mainly from areas immediately around the settlements.
Policy on paper and in practice
Uganda’s approach builds on the 1999 Self-Reliance Strategy, the Settlement Transformative Agenda linked to the second National Development Plan (2015 to 2020), and the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework. Services are meant to be shared rather than run in parallel, and resources are allocated under the 70:30 principle, intended to make sure host communities benefit. In practice the 30 percent target for hosts is rarely reached, the principle is applied unevenly, and there is disagreement over who counts as a host. Health and education are the most integrated sectors: refugee children attend government-aided schools and follow the Ugandan curriculum, and refugees and nationals both use free primary healthcare. Even so, many services for refugees still sit outside national systems, and the response remains largely short-term.
Education and livelihoods as shared services
Many refugee children attend community schools run by UNHCR or NGOs that are not part of the national system. Where children learn together, a shared language and classroom support social integration, and education strongly shapes where South Sudanese families choose to settle and whether they return. Severe underfunding of schools works against this and can strain relations between communities.
Settlement economies are active: studies cited in the report found that 95 percent of refugees grow crops and 22 percent sell some of their produce. But few South Sudanese have access to enough land of adequate quality, and self-reliance is held back by a subsistence focus, difficulty diversifying livelihoods, continuing food insecurity, weak links to economies beyond the settlements, and single-year livelihood funding.
What shapes relations between refugees and hosts
Shared services are one factor in integration but not the main one. They give people a place to meet, while sport, markets and religion can matter more. When services are stretched, sharing them can cause conflict. Hosts also carry real costs, including land tensions, environmental damage and competition for services, and they describe land negotiations as pressured and insufficiently consultative. Integration happens anyway, at different speeds: shared identity, ethnicity and language help, and younger and longer-staying refugees are more integrated. Refugees achieve informal integration but not legal integration, and unregistered refugees who opt out of the settlement system are often among the most self-reliant, a link the study says needs far more research. Early decisions about where and how refugees are settled shape their prospects for years.
What we recommended
- Fund and coordinate efforts to integrate and localise the refugee response, using an area-based approach to the needs of hosts and refugees.
- Build an achievable self-reliance strategy into the Livelihoods and Jobs Response Plan, inside and outside settlements, linked to district economic development.
- Prioritise and fund settlement and site planning, and build local capacity to take part in it.
- Engage host communities systematically, including on the financial and opportunity costs of hosting.
- Recognise the diversity of the South Sudanese population and strengthen conflict management capacity, including within refugee communities.
- Analyse land issues fully, formalise land acquisition, and support registration of customary land rights where customary landlords accept it.
Read the full report with executive summary and the summary of key findings and recommendations.
References
ReDSS (2019). Are integrated services a step towards integration? Uganda case study. Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat. https://www.regionaldss.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ReDSS-Uganda-Report-FINAL-2019.pdf
ReDSS (2019). Are integrated services a step towards integration in Northern Uganda? Summary of key findings and recommendations. Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat. https://www.regionaldss.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Are-integrated-access-to-services-a-step-towards-integration-in-Northern-Uganda-summary.pdf
