Their Suffering, Our Burden? How Congolese Refugees Affect the Ugandan Population

This paper analyzes the impact of both the long-term presence and additional influxes of refugees on the local population in Uganda. Uganda has a unique legal framework of local integration which makes it an interesting case study. Refugees are allowed to work and move freely. The political aim is to integrate them economically and socially into the host communities. The impact of this approach on Ugandan households’ objective and subjective welfare as well as their access to public services is the focus of this study. Two different household surveys covering the years 2002–10 are used in order to employ a difference-in-differences approach. In doing so, the natural experiment of two sudden inflows is exploited, while simultaneously controlling for the long-term trends in refugee numbers. The findings presented here suggest that the Ugandan population living near refugee settlements benefits both in terms of consumption and public service provisions. However, their negative perceptions regarding their own economic situation and their alienation from their national state in favor of their ethnic identity contradict this objective improvement of livelihoods. This is the first study to empirically analyze the effect of a long-term presence of displaced populations on local communities. With refugee situations becoming increasingly protracted, the findings offer important policy insights and point toward an interesting new field of research.