As the world witnesses a drastic increase in the numbers of refugees and forced migrants, governments, humanitarian actors and development partners alike continue to debate the humanitarian, social, economic and security implications of this growth in international displacement.

Today, we have published our Annual Report highlighting our work over 2017.

2017 was a year of significant achievement for us, as we continued to work on our three main programmatic areas of: -identifying the violations that cause displacement and exile; -protecting the rights of those who are displaced, and -ensuring resolutions to their displacement are durable, rights respecting, safe and timely.

By January 2018, there were approximately 1.4 million refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda, the majority of whom are from South Sudan. The rapid expansion and demarcation of land for refugee settlements in northern Uganda has allowed national and international actors to respond to the humanitarian needs of South Sudanese refugee communities. While this has led to life-saving interventions, the processes by which land was acquired from host communities has gone largely unquestioned by donors and humanitarian and development partners active in the Uganda refugee response.

“Movement restricted”: new policy paper on Congolese refugees in Angola

Between March and July 2017, close to 35,000 Congolese refugees fled atrocities in the Kasai region and sought safety in Angola. While the Angolan government has offered many safety from militia and army attacks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), its treatment of those who have fled is troubling.

They may have fled abuses in their country, but Burundian refugees in Nakivale refugee settlement in Uganda still live in fear for their safety and do not feel beyond the reach of the Burundian government and its militia, the Imbonerakure.