| dc.description.abstract | Uganda hosts almost two thirds of all refugees in Sub-Saharan Africa and is one of the five countries in the world hosting the most refugees, with an estimated 1,4 million refugees currently residing in the country. This protracted crisis leads to actors working in the refugee response having to adapt their approaches and interventions. A trend in refugee response policies is the idea of self-reliance for refugees, which has contributed to both a discourse and approach change in refugee projects. Both intergovernmental agencies and governments develop policies to set a direction for their contributions to the refugee response. In this myriad of documents and policies, NGOs work to develop projects for refugees, and interact with such policies, partners, their own strategies and with project participants.
This thesis looks at how Norwegian NGOs who work with projects including self-reliance elements experience the ruling relations and which space they have for developing their projects for refugees in Uganda. Through a document analysis of relevant refugee response frameworks and interviews with representatives from NGOs and donor agencies, I find that the NGOs interpret self-reliance differently, and they employ wide definitions of the concept. They further design their projects so that it involves elements from both the humanitarian and long-term development sectors to fit the needs of the refugees and their context. The NGOs are actors in a web of ruling relations ranging from international and national refugee response policies and frameworks, donor requirements, political leadership, their own strategies and their local partners. Further, the NGOs are also ruling relations themselves, as donors are reliant on them for context information and as implementing partners for the funding granted from the government, and as partners need them to access funding from the donor agencies. | |