Self-settled Refugees in Uganda: An Alternative Approach to Displacement?

This paper investigates the complex security and economic dynamicsthat influence the lives and opportunities of self-settled refugeesliving in Uganda. It focuses on the opportunities and problemsfaced by self-settled refugees, and questions the assumptionthat Uganda's current local settlement policy is best suitedto the country's social, economic and political realities. Itsuggests that far from being passive victims, self-settled refugeesare taking control of their lives without any additional externalassistance and are planning for the day they can return to theirhomeland. Consequently, the paper argues that there is reasonto believe that local integration is likely to succeed whereother models have failed.