Dignity in Informality? Urban Refugee Self-Reliance Assistance in Kampala, Uganda

This chapter presents a case study of urban refugee livelihoods trainings in Kampala, Uganda, in 2015. It explores how the contemporary global discourse of refugee self-reliance is transposed on to a local context. Livelihoods trainings offered by national and international organizations are examined, including through the ‘following’ of refugees through their post-training livelihoods creation. This chapter presents the impact of trainings on refugee self-reliance as well as the local constraints refugees face in achieving self-reliance in Kampala, including lack of access to capital and markets. It also focuses on the impact of neoliberal tenets of contemporary refugee assistance as well as the impact of urbanization and informalization, arguing that the concept of refugee self-reliance is largely used as a political tool to avoid assisting refugees.