PICTURE THIS: There are close to a million refugees in the Great Lakes region. Another 1.61 million living in camps in South Sudan.
But there is no money.

And when the United Nations High Commission for Refugees appealed for aid, specifically $608.8 million to take care of 2.54 million people displaced by the conflict in South Sudan, it received just $122 million — about 20 per cent of its needs.

UNHCR has been here before. An appeal of $313.9 million to take care of Burundian refugees in 2016 was sent out, but only 15 per cent has been provided.

Dwindling funding and an ever increasing number of refugees are pushing countries like Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia into borrowing.

While Tanzania is discussing a loan agreement with the World Bank for a project supporting long term refugees to whom it recently granted citizenship, Zambia has already taken up such a loan and provided residence, land access rights and social economic integration to long-term refugees. 

Uganda is going a step further: It is seeking a $50 million loan and has scheduled a meeting with donors to appeal for funding while asking UNHCR to offer necessities like food in refugees’ countries of origin.

“We have asked UNCHR to provide food to these people while they are still in South Sudan, so that they have no reason to leave their homes,” said Musa Echweru, Uganda’s State Minister for Disaster Preparedness and Relief.   

Renewed clashes in South Sudan’s Central and Western Equatoria, Western Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile and Unity States have fuelled the exodus and over 200,000 people into Uganda and Sudan. As a result the two countries are straining to provide food and shelter.

For Uganda, which received close to 50 per cent of the new arrivals, the lack of funds has meant keeping refugees in congested transit centres with overstretched facilities.

The country opened a new settlement in the Yumbe district, but without funds for infrastructure, refugees cannot be moved. Development of another settlement in Maaji III, in Adjumani district, has been put on hold.

Without places to settle, refugees are being kept in transit and reception centres. Some of the reception centres currently accommodate five times their capacity, as UNHCR has failed to relocate 45,000 South Sudanese refugees looking for asylum in Uganda.

UNHCR warns that these people are living too close to each other and such proximity could lead to disease outbreaks.

READ: UNHCR faces funding shortage as more flee South Sudan

This is not just a problem for Uganda. It has spread across the Great Lakes region to affect Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia.

While the latest crisis involves South Sudan refugees, similar challenges have been experienced with other refugees fleeing DRC and Burundi.

Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and DRC host 295,878 Burundian refugees, who are now suffering from reduced donor contribution.

Failing to invest in refugees

According to UNHCR, the high number of refugees is a burden on not just local health and education services but also the environment.

In the case of Uganda, where the refugee law and policy regime provide for freedom of movement, the right to seek employment and the allocating of plots on which to build new homes and grow crops, vegetation is being cleared to achieve some of these goals. This is accelerating the already high deforestation rates in the country.

As a result, Uganda has now decided to borrow at least $50 million from the World Bank to provide social services like water, health and education in refugee hosting districts. The loan proposal is under consideration before the Cabinet, but was deferred two weeks ago to come up with a a loan request that covers all refugee hosting districts, as they are all experiencing pressure of social services.

The loan will go towards improving basic social services, expanding economic activity and enhancing environmental management in four refugee hosting districts: Arua, Adjumani, Kiryandongo and Isingiro. This meant leaving out four other districts that include Masindi, Yumber, Kamwenge and Kyenjojo.

According to UNHCR, failing to invest in refugees fails women, children and men who need urgent and sustained help to overcome the trauma of forced displacement.

The inability to provide food, shelter, basic services, psychosocial assistance, education and livelihood opportunities increases and prolongs the likelihood of further conflict in both the host and country of origin. 

The $50 million is a fraction of a $175 million World Bank first phase loan meant to mitigate the impact of forced displacement among refugee hosting communities in Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Ethiopia will take $100 million; $20 million will go to Djibouti, while $5 million will be given to the International governmental Authority Development (Igad) as a grant.

The Igad money will be used to establish a regional secretariat for forced displacement that will help countries in the Great Lakes region reduce conflict and the other factors that force people to flee their homes.

Conflicts in Somalia, Burundi, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo have combined to push waves of refugees into put Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda among the top eight refugee hosting countries in the world. Yet most of these countries which are either least developed or developing countries that cannot afford to look after these refugees.