Who depends on whom? Uganda’s refugee ‘success story’, corruption and the international community

The progressive refugee policy of the Ugandan government has been widely applauded as a success story, and Uganda has been depicted as a role model. This article argues how the perceived success created a situation of mutual dependency between the Ugandan government and the international community. While the Ugandan government relied on aid from the international community, the international community had interests in the success story as proof that their policies work (for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), and in response to the European migration crisis (for bilateral donor governments). Nevertheless, in 2018, it emerged that the Ugandan refugee policy suffered from large-scale corruption. The article argues that the mutual dependency provided a fertile breeding ground for corruption, and negatively impacted accountability. Similarly to how the Museveni regime has been able to benefit from an image of success to deflect accountability on governance transgressions in the past, it has now largely managed to evade accountability for corruption in its refugee policy.