Uganda hosts over 1.5 million refugees, primarily displaced due to violence and civil unrest in neighbouring South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Around 95 percent live in settlements across eleven refugee-hosting districts, with 80 percent living below the international poverty line, and 54 percent experiencing food insecurity. Despite Uganda's progressive refugee policy, refugees struggle to integrate into local economies and become self-reliant.

The protracted displacement situation of most refugees and limited prospects of return to their countries of origin mean that local integration is the most realistic durable solution for refugees in Uganda. 

In Uganda, FAO conducted value chain and market systems analyses in order to develop the skills of 1 000 refugees and 1 365 members of Ugandan host communities in Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement to participate in productive agriculture. Using FAO’s Farmer Field School approach in partnership with a local Ugandan non-governmental organization, mixed groups of Ugandans and refugees learned how to grow passion fruit, a valuable cash crop, using locally adapted, climate-smart techniques. Participants were also trained to grow horticultural crops, including tomatoes and eggplants to improve household nutrition, and were encouraged to form Village Savings and Loan Associations and producer cooperatives to negotiate prices collectively on the market.

This good practice provides an overview of a four-year inclusive value chain development project implemented by FAO from 2020 to 2024, with funds from the IKEA foundation, in refugee-hosting regions of Kenya and Uganda.