What I learned from visiting refugee settlements in Uganda

In February, as I started my new role as CEO at Opportunity International UK, I was conscious of changing global priorities and reducing budgets.

For Opportunity, the immediate impact of the funding cuts was most evident in our work with refugees in Uganda. 

The news from colleagues in Uganda was concerning. Projects in the refugee settlements had been shut down overnight. Funding of vital services, such as food assistance, slashed. Clinics closed and health workers let go. Years of experience lost in an instant. Decades of progress shelved and mothballed.

At 1.87 million, Uganda hosts the fourth largest refugee population in the world and has one of the world’s most progressive refugee policies. Unlike the tented, temporary camps we often see in the news, Uganda’s refugee settlements are designed for the long-term. They are small towns, with roads, marketplaces, schools, churches and mosques. Refugees have freedom of movement, they are given a small piece of land and the right to work.

The Ugandan government is realistic about how long refugees will stay – on average 17 years. It’s an approach rooted in humanity and practicality, but dependent on partnerships with humanitarian agencies and NGOs.

I travelled with Opportunity’s Refugee Finance team to two settlements – Rwamwanja and Nakivale – home to more than 364,000 refugees. Both are located deep in rural areas, about a five-hour drive from the capital, Kampala, and an hour from the nearest towns. As we drew closer, the roads turned to rough tracks and there was visibly less traffic, just the occasional boda boda.

The two settlements are home to diverse refugee communities from the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Burundi, Somalia and Rwanda. Many have fled wars, internal conflicts, famine and climate emergencies. Their stories are traumatic. One woman I met in Nakivale had arrived after her husband was killed in front of her. Ayoung man in Rwamwanja told me he’d walked for many days through the bush to reach safety. And the story which has haunted me most; Charlotte, a young teenager left by her parents, had resorted to selling her body to buy food for herself and her younger siblings.

What stood out for me was not their stories of hardship, but their determination to make a new start and build lives in a new place. This is where Opportunity’s work is making the difference.

Supporting refugees to establish and grow businesses

We started out five years ago by spending time with refugees in the settlements, listening to their hopes, dreams and challenges. We heard that the main barriers to making a new start were not lack of vision or determination, but access to finance to establish businesses and the support to navigate bureaucratic processes.

We hired financial inclusion officers from within the settlements to deliver financial literacy and business training and began to disburse small loans to help refugees establish and grow businesses. In October 2021, Opportunity opened the first commercial bank branch in a Ugandan refugee settlement, enabling refugees to access loans, secure savings and transact through bank tellers and a 24-hour ATM.

Since 2019, Opportunity has reached over 40,000 refugees with financial literacy and business training, opened 20,000 savings accounts and disbursed 3,845 loans.

The power of finance and business training, savings groups, and access to finance can be seen as refugees rebuild their lives. With humanitarian aid rapidly reducing, it is increasingly important to provide practical interventions like these, which enable refugees to become self-reliant and restore dignity.

Refugees shaping their own solutions

In both settlements, I saw how Opportunity is helping refugees to build new futures.

In Nakivale, Dorcas had received a loan through Opportunity Bank of Uganda. She has upgraded her tiny shop and was now a proud owner of a fashion boutique, selling second-hand clothes and employing her daughter as her bookkeeper.

In Rwamwanja, at an Opportunity Street Business School training session, young refugees were overcoming barriers to business and supporting each other. I heard how Charlotte, the young teen I mentioned before, had set up a cassava business and was now feeding her four siblings and paying their school fees. The room was alive – with questions, laughter and, most of all, hope.

We recognise that those closest to the challenges – the refugees and host communities – are best places to shape solutions that are effective, sustainable and bring dignity and purpose. That’s why Opportunity’s Refugee Finance team, financial inclusion officers, trainers and coaches are nearly all Ugandan or refugees themselves.

At the Rwamwanja Opportunity Bank branch – opening soon thanks to our generous supporters – I met Eve, the branch manager, whose deep knowledge of the community and quiet leadership embodies everything we mean when we say, “locally led”.

The need to scale up the financial services that support self-reliance  

The challenges are vast, from funding gaps to the climate crisis – which is now displacing more people than conflict. But so is the potential. I saw it in every conversation, every training session, every ledger carefully filled out. Financial services are a lifeline, but more than that, they are a route to self-reliance.

We urgently need to scale up our work to support more refugees and provide them with a pathway to prosperity. This is real change, built from the ground up. Not handouts. Not short-term fixes. Just the tools people need to build secure, independent futures.

As we look ahead, I’m excited about the next phase of our work. Our Seeds of Self-Reliance project, made possible with support from the Isle of Man Government, began in April. This project will reach at least 10,000 more refugees in the two settlements. We have moved the programme management function to Uganda and are partnering with two refugee-led organisations in the settlements (Tomorrow Vijana and Unleashed) which are designing and delivering support that truly meets their communities’ needs.

The project will establish informal savings groups, deliver financial literacy and business trainings and provide access to formal financial services to establish and grow refugee-led businesses. One thousand refugee farmers will benefit from trainings in regenerative agriculture to improve their productivity, incomes and resilience to climate change, while also supplying a variety of healthy, nutritious food to the settlement.

The project embodies everything we’ve seen succeed in Uganda: trusted local partnerships, smart innovation and unwavering belief in the potential of people – even in the hardest of circumstances.

Uganda affirmed what I already knew, the work that Opportunity is doing is not just effective – it’s essential.

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