Support for Uganda
Uganda takes in the most refugees in Africa. Germany is providing support in the form of humanitarian assistance and long-term projects.
The civil war in South Sudan has forced a large part of the population to flee. About 1.9 million people have fled to neighbouring countries, with over one million seeking protection and help in Uganda. With a total of 1.3 million refugees , Uganda, which itself has around 40 million inhabitants, is the country taking the most refugees in Africa and worldwide the country hosting the fourth-largest number of refugees.
Exemplary refugee policy
Uganda’s policy on refugees prioritizes development and is considered exemplary worldwide for how the refugees are integrated. In Uganda, refugees enjoy freedom of movement and are given land, seeds and tools in order to be able to provide for themselves as quickly as possible.
However, as the refugee figures are rising dramatically, the Ugandan refugee policy is coming up against its limits. Capacities for hosting so many people and land availability are largely exhausted. And the drought in large part of East Africa is causing even more people to flee to Uganda.
50 million Euros assistance
The German Federal government therefore pledged the sum of roughly 50 million Euros to Uganda during the Uganda Solidarity Summit on Refugees co-hosted by the country and the UN in Kampala in June 2017 – to help support refugees from the civil war in South Sudan. A total of 14 million Euros will be dedicated to humanitarian assistance, while the rest will be committed to development cooperation projects.
German-Ugandan development cooperation dates back as far as 1964. Initially, the Declaration of Independence in 1962 was followed by two decades full of unrest and power struggles, before, in 1986, Yoweri Museveni became president and initiated an era of peace and reconciliation in large parts of the country. Uganda has been a priority partner country of German development cooperation since 2007.
“Better migration management”
A core project being carried out by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) is the “Better Migration Management” programme in the Horn of Africa. On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the EU, the GIZ is working with five EU member states and a number of prominent institutions to help make cross-border migration in the region easier and safer.
The project was launched in the context of the special initiative “Tackling the root causes of displacement, reintegrating refugees” which BMZ launched in 2014. The intention is to provide short-term support to refugees and host communities, and it seeks to eliminate the long-term structural causes of displacement, such as poverty, inequality and lack of food security.
