Simon Modi, 17, has just crossed into Yumbe in northern Uganda from South Sudan and within a few hours will be bussed to Bidi Bidi, one of world’s largest refugee settlements. Within 24 hours, he and his relatives will be settled on a half-acre plot with the tools to farm and build a home.

The Ugandan refugee operation is seamless. But for now, it fails to sooth Modi. All he knows is that his father was shot, he missed his exams, and his mother is trudging through savannah with six children. “Maybe tomorrow they will arrive. If not, I will go back to find them!”



Three other boys clasp their heads. “We learned their story when they were crying,” says Mohamed Bran, who runs the collection point for refugees. “Their mother was killed, the fate of their father unknown.”

Refugees are pouring in. Bran keeps a list of why. Besides “killing and torturing” are “abduction of men, trading has stopped, no schools, looting of properties”. “It was preventive fleeing,” says Charlie Yaxley of the UN high commissioner for refugees. “Now it is actual violence. They go through forest because of armed groups on the road.” On 21 February South Sudan declared famine. It is horribly grim.

Yet inside Uganda something extraordinary is happening. The country has a no camp policy and has settlements instead – swathes of land availed to refugees. Refugees can move freely, work and own a business. “Uganda is incredibly switched on,” says Musarait Kashmiri from African Initiatives for Relief and Development, which has opened 343km of roads in Bidi Bidi. “Uganda is a showcase,” says Yaxley.

The settlement has churches under trees, health units and schools for refugee and local children. Most refugees are ready to farm. “Since we crossed, we have not heard guns,” says Helena Kujang,who “followed the footsteps of citizens” to safety. “We are going to grow our own food. All the seeds that are available, we will plant.”

Young people who fled fighting in South Sudan attend classes in a tent at Bidi Bidi refugee resettlement camp. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Several reasons exist for Uganda’s outlier levels of hospitality. Its commissioner for refugees, David Kazungu, says “Ugandans have been in exile and know what it means, and refugees are important for social and economic transformation.” Jens Hesemann suggests the last might be key. A 2016 study by University of California Davis and the UN World Food Programme found that “refugees’ purchases benefit local and national economies, and economic benefits exceed the amount of donated aid”. “In many countries such an influx would have led to a crisis,” says the UNHCR senior field coordinator. “Here it’s working.”

A small cotton farmer extols the change. “The refugees are an opportunity,” says Hamza Yassin, 23. “Before they came, this place was empty. But they’ve created a marketplace. We can now buy things close by.”

“Providing land to refugees allows them to immediately start settling, as no one knows how long they will have to stay,” says Yann Libessart of Médecins Sans Frontières. “Markets will expand, and the distinction between a South Sudanese refugee settlement and a Ugandan village eventually blur. This could give an economic boost.”

But Uganda’s great undertaking could go wrong. “The hosts have been outstanding and the settlement model is unique,” says Hesemann. “But it comes with high expectations that if communities host refugees, they will benefit. It needs to be followed with concrete funding, or it risks disenfranchising the community.” However, just 36% of the $251m (£204m) needed in 2016 has come through, and at least three further settlements have had to open since Bidi Bidi filled up.

There is also a clear and present danger of profound environmental damage to a district already poor, losing soil, entirely dependent on wood to cook and build, and reliant on economic activities that degrade natural resources, such as sand mining, which breaks down riverbanks, and charcoal, brick making and tobacco curing, which consume millions of trees a year.

“Almost all the population depends on the environment so anything that happens to it is a big problem,” says Serbeet Kawawa, Yumbe’s natural resources officer. “The question is how to make refugees and host communities lead a sustainable life.” Yumbe already teeters on food insecurity, and water is so scarce that it is tanked from the Nile to refugees.

“What we are seeing is a total destruction of trees,” says district agriculture officer Rashid Kawawa. “They clear their land and use the standing ones for fuel. We risk losing our big ones, which are important for biodiversity and rain.” This also worries farmer Yasin. “I doubt we shall experience our wet season,” he says.



An aerial photograph showing South Sudanese refugees at Bidi Bidi resettlement camp.

Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

One project is marking “1,000 mother trees of biological importance like mahogany and shea,” explains forest officer Zabibu Ocogour. But much more needs to be done, like “a programme to explain what we are doing. The refugees may not understand.”

Planting and regenerating trees will give refugees prunings to cook with, reduce pressure on natural vegetation and address assaults on women collecting wood. FAO’s Guidance on safe access on firewood and alternative energy in humanitarian settings advocates woodlots, efficient stoves, and farming that produces food and fuel.

Serbeet Kawawa appreciates the humanitarian shift. “It used to be rehabilitation after repatriation. Now it is prevent damage right from the start.”



“We emphasise stopping uncontrolled bush burning,” adds Timothy Olum Ojwi of the Lutheran World Federation. “The challenge is the long dry spell. Planting has to wait. But we give refugees 70% of everything we do, and host communities are happy because they receive 30%.”

This current exemplary state needs urgent support: 300,000 refugees from South Sudan are expected in 2017, according to UNHCR, and a projected $558m (£453m) will be needed for all South Sudanese, now totalling 762,672, in Uganda this year. “The authorities, humanitarian community and environment can only cope with so much,” says MSF’s Libessart.

Cathy Watson is chief of programme development at the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi.



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