UN asks govt to find new ways for financing refugees

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) representative to Uganda, Ms Elsie Attafuah, has advised the Uganda government to find innovative means of sourcing funds needed to support administration and control of refugees in the country.
Addressing stakeholders at the 11th Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) steering group meeting in Kampala yesterday, Ms Attaffua said finances are still a challenge.
“I think we need to be creative about resource mobilisation. Try and look at innovative sources of financing,” she advised.
Ms Attefuah asked government to tap into other UN programmes especially with similar initiatives to the plight of the refugees in Uganda.

“We in the UN family are now developing what we have called the integrated national financing framework which is to support the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) implementation. This is where we need to work with you to integrate the issue of refugees inside this framework,” Ms Attafuah said.
Ms Attafuah’s remarks come after officials from the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) indicated that they needed more funds for the programmes under CRRF.
Government reacts
However, in a separate interview with, the minister of State for Relief and Disaster Preparedness, Mr Musa Ecweru, said the government is now constrained by the refugee influx.
“As Uganda we have taken more than probably enough share of refugees in terms of the numbers. You should know that we are the biggest refugee host country in Africa and the 3rd biggest in the World,” Mr Ecweru said.
He said the government’s call for more funds to finance refugee concerns in the country was occasioned by the failure of some of the donors in honouring their pledges.

“A lot didn’t come through like the international community had promised. The explanation they have given is that their governments didn’t give that money directly but they channelled it through some of their development groups,” Mr Ecweru said.
According to the minister, Uganda is now home to 1.4 million refugees.
He partly blames the decline in donor remittances to Uganda on the outbreak of global pandemic which caused shift of attention from refugees to the control of Covid-19.
“There is a risk of the international community putting its eyes now on Covid-19 and forgetting that there is this group around the world that needs humanitarian support,” he said.