Oliver Bakewell, Javans Okhonjo Wanga Whether people are migrating freely in the hope of improving their quality of life or fleeing as refugees to save their lives in the face of persecution, conflict and violence, the movement of people across the world creates both enormous challenges and great opportunities for societies in every continent. The complex set of drivers shaping people’s movements and the large array of stakeholders involved as
People in South Sudan have experienced decades of forced displacement and cross-border mobility, resulting in families split across the country and neighbouring Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. As of 2021, more than four million South Sudanese citizens were displaced either internally or internationally. Over the past four years, over 500,000 refugees and over 1.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) have returned to their habitual residence. This policy brief discusses long-standing
David N. Tshimba Forced displacement, the world over, is increasingly urbanised: urban areas are becoming key sites of asylum for a great many refugees even though humanitarian assistance available in them is still limited, especially for countries hosting huge amount of prima facie refugees such as Uganda. Based on small-scale rapid fieldwork, the present study revisits the widespread policy assumptions that refugees who are self-settled or settling in Uganda’s urban
Zahara Nampewo, Hadijah Namyalo-Ganafa, Edgar Emmanuel Mugarura, Lavender M. Mboya In the past ten years, there has been a surge in the number of Ugandan labour migrants (both high and low skilled) to the Gulf region, constituting an important part of the economic development of these countries. Though initially sought for specific industries (i.e. construction and service industries), Ugandan migrants are increasingly contributing to other high skilled and professional sectors
South Sudan is experiencing different types of movements that are often labelled as ‘return’. Despite ongoing insecurity and a chronic shortage of essential services, it has been estimated that 505,511 refugees[1] and 1,183,666 IDPs have returned to their areas of origin within the country since 2018.[2] At the same time, with an estimated 2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 2.2 million refugees registered in hosting countries, South Sudan remains
This blog is related to an upcoming report by the Research and Evidence Facility on women’s labour migration to the Gulf Countries. The full report will be available in September 2022. I am a single mother of three children trying to fend for myself, the children and build a house. I went to Oman in 2014 through an agent who processed everything for me. I boarded a bus with four
Felicity A. Okoth Four years after the adoption of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) at the UN General Assembly, the environment in which donors, UN agencies and governments in the Horn of Africa (HoA) are expected to translate commitments into action has remained unstable. New and intensified challenges, including those linked to the Covid-19 pandemic and the increasingly
The Research and Evidence Facility (REF) was established in May 2016 to conduct research relevant to the formulation and implementation of EU Trust Fund activities in the Horn of Africa. It was created to collate and produce evidence and policy relevant knowledge on themes related to the Fund’s activities. Themes to be researched include the drivers of migration, dynamics of cross-border economies and centre/periphery relations, the features and limitations of
This policy brief presents the findings and recommendations from a study, on disability inclusion for refugees in Ethiopia. The study examines the experiences, protection needs, barriers to, and opportunities for providing protection for refugees living with disabilities in Ethiopia, and ways to institutionalise better practices of inclusion. Persons with disabilities are often programmatically ‘invisible’ in refugee assistance programmes due to a lack of data and a range of individual, institutional,
Abebaw Minaye Gezie, Padmini Iyer In the Horn of Africa (HoA), investments in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and other employability programmes are typically predicated on the assumption that these activities will: a) provide alternatives to migration and reduce young people’s incentives to follow irregular migratory routes; and b) reduce young people’s incentives to become involved with violent groups, thus contributing to conflict prevention and stability in the