Author(s)

Abstract

Background

By June 2023, Uganda hosted over 1.6 million refugees and asylum-seekers. While about 8% of refugees are in the capital city Kampala, the vast majority (92%) is spread over 13 settlements of Adjumani, Bidibidi, Imvepi, Lobule, Palabek, Palorinya and Rhino Camp in the Northern region, Kiryandongo and Kyangwali in the Mid-West, as well as Kyaka II, Nakivale, Oruchinga and Rwamwanja in the Southwest region.

With the largest refugee population in Africa, the government of Uganda though the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) in coordination with WFP, UNICEF and UNHCR, continues efforts to understand the needs and concerns from refugees and conducts a Food Security and Nutritional Assessment on a yearly basis. The refugee and host community FSNA is conducted by a consortium of entities ranging from the District Local Governments (DLGs), Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), Ministry of Health (MoH), and other key stakeholders, with an essential needs assessment approach. FSNA reports on the general conditions on Health and Nutrition, WASH, Food Security, and Long-lasting Insecticide treated nets (LITN) of refugees in all the 13 settlements and Kampala and nationals in 12 host districts to support design of appropriate interventions to address the needs of Persons of Concern (PoCs).

Methodology

A two-stage cluster sampling design was implemented across all the locations with more than 10,000 people.
Locations with less than 10,000 people i.e., Oruchinga (7,943) and Lobule (5,991) used a one stage simple random sampling procedure. The sample size per settlement and per host district was based on prevalence of GAM in children under 5 years from the 2022 refugee FSNA.

Key findings

Findings are disaggregated by host community and refugees. Settlements are operationally categorized into West Nile (Adjumani, Lobule, Rhino Camp, Palorinya, Bidibidi, Imvepi, and Palabek) and Southwest (Kyaka II, Kyangwali, Kiryandongo, Nakivale, Oruchinga, and Rwamwanja) settlements. The most recent data collection was done in June 2022 which formed the reference value to compare performance for the results of this survey.

Demography

Among the refugee population, nearly two-thirds (67.2%) of households are led by females. Adjumani (83.9%) had the highest proportion of female headed households. Conversely, among host communities, an average of one in every two households (58.7%) is headed by males. At 69.7%, Kamwenge had the highest proportion of male headed households. In both refugee and host communities, a significant proportion of household heads have received formal education. Notably, the majority of these individuals have completed primary school (70%), with an additional 18% having attained lower secondary education. Five in ten refugee household heads were married, while two thirds of host community household heads were married.

The average household size among the refugee households was 6.0, while the host communities had an average household size of 5.5. Among the refugee settlements, Kiryandongo had the largest average household size of 7.4 members. Koboko District with a mean household size of 6.4 had the largest average household size among the host communities.