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Uganda is one of the top refugee hosting countries in Africa and the world. It has been praised as a generous country with progressive refugee policies and laws that reflect the country’s national, regional and international obligations. However, a number of challenges ranging from increasing refugee numbers, protracted refugee situations, the burden of hosting of refugees, to limited resources and little international support threaten Uganda’s hospitality. This article looks at the major refugee protection challenges that confront Uganda. It further addresses some of the emerging opportunities which if seized could provide effective protection to the refugees. Finally, the paper concludes with policy implications. Key words: Refugees, refugee problem, challenges, opportunities, Uganda.

In the last thirteen years since the discovery of oil and gas resources in Uganda, numerous developments have taken place to pave way for the development of oil and gas sector which necessitated land acquisition. In response, interventions such as cash compensation, partial land acquisition and resettlement were undertaken. The lacuna for this study is that, there is limited research that focuses on the experiences of women in oil-induced land dispossession, compensation and resettlement in relation to their reliance on the land for livelihood. This paper, therefore, aims at evaluating these experiences on land compensation dispossession for oil and gas development activities and the impact on women’s livelihoods in Albertine region. A phenomenological study research design was adopted through multimethod such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, covert observation and documentary evidence. Purposive sampling was used to select women in categories and snowball sampling to trace displaced women who were not resettled. Findings indicate that cash compensation and resettlement process had loopholes that failed to deal with social, cultural and economic aspects of the affected communities. In conclusion, oil induced compensation process has had devastating experiences on women and many have become more vulnerable. We argue that the negative lived experiences by women as a result of compensation process were attributed to their subordinate status in the rural communities in respect to property ownership and household decision making. The study recommends that future land compensation, resettlement and implementation strategies be gender-inclusive in order to mitigate negative impacts on women livelihoods., East African Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol. 3 No. 2 (2018)

The paper analyzes the challenge of physical (in) security of Rwandan refugees in Nakivale and Oruchinga settlements, South Western Uganda. The paper is largely based on the views of the refugees themselves. It argues that contrary to her international obligations and the general view that Uganda is a hospitable asylum country, refugees face insecurity caused by a number of factors, including actions by their country of origin and the host state, as well as local settlement dynamics and internal sources. This insecurity has negatively affected the refugees, who have adopted a number of protection measures which supplement the ones put in place by the government and UNHCR. Despite the implementation of different security measures, insecurity still prevails in the settlements.