Social Cohesion and Refugee-Host Interactions : Evidence from East Africa

Building upon the literature on contact theory, this paper explores the role of inter-groupinteraction in shaping social cohesion between refugees and host communities in East Africa. It draws upon first-handquantitative (n=16,608) and qualitative data collected from refugees and nearby host communities in urban and camp-likecontexts in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. Focusing on the Uganda data, OLS regressions reveal a positive andsignificant correlation between refugee-host interaction and the perception of hosts towards refugees. This associationdisappears when an instrumental variable (IV) approach is used to address endogeneity issues, except when only datafrom the urban context is used. The analysis of cross-country data highlights further differences in thetypes of interaction and perception that matter between urban and camp-like contexts. It also suggests thatethno-linguistic proximity between refugee and host populations is associated with more positive attitudes. Inall contexts, an important part of attitude formation appears to take place at the intra-group level, withinhouseholds and immediate neighbourhoods, independently of individual interaction with the out-group. The paperproposes a series of policy recommendations to improve refugee-host social cohesion, with different approachesrequired in urban and camp-like contexts.