Entrepreneurship in Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement
Domaine:
socioeconomicEntrepreneurship plays an increasingly central role in Uganda’s approach to refugee support. With growing numbers of refugees, limited availability of cultivable land, and severe humanitarian funding gaps, the promotion of economic self-reliance has emerged as a pressing agenda among aid agencies, and entrepreneurship programmes targeting refugees have proliferated. This research brief explores the current state of entrepreneurship in Kiryandongo refugee settlement, drawing upon interviews with over 80 refugees, host community members and aid workers in the settlement conducted between March 2024 and August 2025.
Refugee enterprises in Kiryandongo settlement are operating in a demand-constrained environment. Their customers are predominantly refugees who, due to reductions in aid and limited opportunities to engage in income generating activities, lack spending capacity. Refugees who are financially stable typically leave the settlement for urban areas. As a result, there is overconcentration of refugee enterprises in the few sectors where demand is stable because products are essential and cheap. This enhances competition and limits the growth and profitability of businesses. Enterprises that try to innovate and expand into discretionary sectors struggle to survive. Entrepreneurship and skilling programmes for refugees tend to reinforce the trend of overconcentration in specific sectors with limited profitability.
Rising costs of basic services and above all, the costs of education, make it extremely difficult for refugees who are not employed to sustain enterprises in the settlement over time. The challenge is even more acute for households with many children, who spend large portions of their income on education. This is a key reason refugee women who engage in business but have no other forms of support or regular sources of income, struggle to sustain their enterprises. Refugees who are employed or receive remuneration for voluntary work with aid agencies are more likely to be able to sustain businesses. This is because they are able to use their salary to cover basic necessities and routinely invest in their enterprises and save them from collapsing.
Entrepreneurship programmes typically focus on equipping refugees with skills, knowledge, and resources that may enable business activity, accumulation, and growth. However, for refugee entrepreneurship to be viable, the wider context in which refugees are expected to operate successful enterprises must be considered. Donors and aid agencies should devise ways to provide long-term support to refugee enterprises that are able to sell goods or services outside the settlement, work to reduce the costs of basic services, and advocate for the maintenance of aid for refugees. In the short term, entrepreneurship programmes cannot serve as alternatives to humanitarian aid.