Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

Manage the continued influx of refugees from South Sudan by providing immediate emergency response support to new arrivals and simultaneously developing social services in the new refugee settlements (Bidibidi, Palorinya, Imvepi and Palabek in Yumbe,Moyo, Arua and Lamwo districts, respectively).

Expected results

Indirectly, the activities for persons of concern affect the more than 950,000 South Sudan refugees in Uganda and an estimated 290,000 members of the host community. An estimated 86% are women and children, of which 56% are women and 60% are children.

Austria's contribution of EUR 1,500,000 could help to:

Support 425,800 direct beneficiaries from South Sudan in:

- Provision of core relief items to 7,200 new arrivals (2,400 households)

- Contribute towards the access to a time-critical supply of safe water according to emergency standards (15L/p/d) for new arrivals and host communities across the West Nile settlements (425,800 refugees from South Sudan)

- Establishment of 2 sustainable motorized water systems at high yielding boreholes (drilled under other funding) with a piped network serving 8,000 – 10,000 individuals (at the UNHCR standard of 20L/p/d) in accordance with the settlement WASH Master Plan (refugees from South Sudan and host communities).

Target group / Beneficiaries

The activities for persons of concern affect South Sudan refugees in Uganda and members of the Ugandan host community. An estimated 86% are women and children, of which 56% are women and 60% are children.

UNHCR implements the program directly and at the same time through partners such as The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) and more than 60 Non-Governmental Organizations and Government Departments.

UNHCR supports persons of concern affected by the South Sudan Situation in Uganda (e.g. Palorinya Settlement, Rhino Settlement, Bidibidi Settlement, Imvepi Settlement).

Activities

Austria’s contribution might support the below activities:

- Continuation of the provision of core relief items to each newly arriving household (kitchen sets to store, cook and serve the UN World Food Programme monthly ration; jerry-cans to collect and store water; wash basins and soap to bathe and wash clothes; blankets and sleeping mats; and mosquito nets to prevent malaria). The most vulnerable beneficiaries (including women and children who make up 86% of the population from South Sudan) are prioritized from Age, Gender and Diversity perspectives and a complaints management desk is a key component of all distribution sites. By so doing, the distribution process also serves as a basic profiling of refugees to properly identify emergency needs and to bridge the emergency assistance to mid-longer term interventions.

- Continuation of time-critical water trucking from high yielding boreholes undergoing water treatment to a network of 15,000L takes that are evenly distributed across the newest zones of the refugee settlements. This essential life-saving activity ensure that refugees and their host communities receive the minimum standard (SPHERE) of15L/person/day until water trucking can be phased out and replaced by sustainable water systems at each location following the WASH Master Plan per settlement.

- Motorization of 2 high yielding boreholes and equipping it with distribution networks that serve 16,000 – 20,000 members of the refugee and host communities receive the UNHCR standard of at least 20L/p/d. Implementation of sustainable water systems is an integral component of the Environmental Health Strategy (EHS), which serves to help stabilise refugees from South Sudan. The EHS is aimed at addressing the needs of refugees and affected host communities in a strategic developmental approach.

- In addition, the Austrian contribution might serve to provide targeted entrepreneurship / business skills training for refugees or to assure access to national primary healthcare services for UNHCR's persons of concern.

Context

Since the South Sudan crisis erupted in December 2013, Uganda has received refugees from South Sudan in waves. The most recent wave started on 8 July 2016. On average, 69,022 new refugees have fled to Uganda every month since July 2016 and by the end of 2016, arrivals in 2016 from South Sudan, had reached 489,265, even though the verification and biometric registration conducted in December reduced the overall number of the new arrivals. In 2017, it is anticipated that another 400,000 South Sudanese refugees may flee to Uganda, with 60% of them being children. As of 31 May 2017, more than 1,930,000 refugees have fled the country with 950,562 being registered in Uganda.

This unprecedented mass influx to Uganda puts enormous pressure on the country’s resources, in particular on land, on basic service delivery, on the humanitarian and development partners’ capacity to respond to the crisis, and on the ability to maintain Uganda’s generous good practice refugee policy. In 2017, a concerted effort of humanitarian and development partners will be required to continue to ensure protection including by saving lives, providing basic services such as WASH, health and education, and to stabilise refugee hosting areas in Uganda.

Uganda has an exemplary refugee protection environment, providing refugees with freedom of movement, the right to work and establish businesses, the right to documentation, access to social services, and allocation of plots of land for shelter and agricultural production through a generous asylum policy (the Refugee Act of 2006 and the Refugee Regulations of 2010). The country pursues a non-camp settlement policy. Refugees are allocated relatively large plots of land (50mx50m per household in most settlements), which allows for both shelter construction and agricultural production. Over time, the settlement approach encourages innovative self-reliance opportunities for refugees that are otherwise not feasible in a camp setting.