Collective Global Responsibility

Attend any party or conference and I guarantee that the first questions asked of you will be designed to work out where you fit in and if I should be impressed and hang out with you or move on to someone more influential. It might go something like, ‘so, what’s your budget this year, and how many staff do you have?’. In other words – how do I compare to you? 

Comparison is not always bad, used in the right hands, and with the right motivation, it can drive us to be better, to perform beyond our expectations, to deliver even more than we imagined. But, conversely egocentric comparison, can (intentionally or not) destroy individual confidence and self-esteem.  

In the same way as petty (or party) comparison can deflate an individual, comparison of global humanitarian emergencies, driven by immediacy, numbers and need, can and has (perhaps unintentionally) resulted in the deprioritisation, and the invisibility of a prior existing, protracted emergency.  

Recently I was telling a media representative that in the first five months of 2022 about 62,000 people have crossed the border from DR Congo into Southwest Uganda, and that by the end of the year predictions are that as many as an additional 100,000 people could be added to the 1.6 million displaced people already hosted by Uganda.  

Uganda has a generous ‘open door’ position on the welcome and hosting of refugees and as a result has for many years hosted the largest number of displaced people on the African continent. The global agreement that “every person has the right to seek safety – whoever they are, wherever they come from, and whenever they are forced to flee” is not just a slogan for World Refugee Day 2022 here in Uganda. Like many host countries it is a philosophy lived out in action, and at national cost. 

“every person has the right to seek safety – whoever they are, wherever they come from, and whenever they are forced to flee”

I heard the media representative laugh at me. ‘62,000 people in five months’ she said, ‘that is less than a days’ worth of displacement in Ukraine – that’s not news, and it certainly isn’t front page news or even a compelling story’.  

She is right of course. If we go by the numbers, there is no comparison. The needs of the millions of displaced Ukrainians are huge, and they deserve attention. Even within our own region the number of people impacted by food insecurity in Somalia and conflicts in Ethiopia are larger and more immediate. It is right that the Ukrainian war, (Somalia, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and not to forget Syria and Yemen) and the people impacted deserve both our attention and support.  

Uganda’s reputation as a welcoming host nation and the success of the Governments integration policy means that, in a comparison of need, decision makers will fall to the default position that Uganda is doing ok. And even now, with a continued influx of refugees because of some of the worst conditions in recent history back at home in DR Congo and South Sudan, the global capitals are forced to measure immediacy and numbers and ignore Uganda. 

What is the outcome of this kind of comparison? Is it a comparison that drives improvement, more impact, or does it minimise one at the cost of another? When there are limited resources, we are all forced to make tough decisions. But, in this case the comparison, in the context of reducing resources (often driven by limited media space and public attention) has resulted in a pendulum swing of attention and support that has rendered the refugees from DR Congo and South Sudan and Uganda’s needs to support them invisible, especially to the media and as a result the public, but also to the decision makers. In many ways Uganda is a victim of its own success and reputation.  

Invisibility, or ignorance, will not changed the reality that thousands of new refugees have come into Uganda from countries where communicable diseases such as Ebola, TB, and Plague are of concern, and into temporary housing solutions where cholera and malaria can be potential killers. The need to address this is not just driven by the necessity to care for the refugees, (which is an international obligation), but for the safety and concern of the Ugandan population. Despite the best efforts of the Government and humanitarian agencies, thousands of children are missing out on education and many vulnerable young children and women are acutely malnourished. Countries like Uganda that receive and host large numbers of refugees, relative to their national populations and economies, need steadfast support and solidarity from the international community. 

I am not suggesting that the attention on Ukraine is not right or proper. I am suggesting that ignoring the needs of Uganda and using numerical comparison to deprioritise the urgent needs in Uganda is not only simplistic, but unhelpful at best and destructive at worst. Ignoring Uganda now puts at risk the very good and real advances made over the last years. 

The 1.6 million refugees in Uganda, the causes of their displacement in DR Congo and South Sudan, (like many other refugee hosting countries and humanitarian crises), must not be ignored. One of the risks of ignoring this ongoing crisis is that the Ugandan government’s commitment to, and achievements within the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) – the model for the world – will be lost and degraded. Uganda has made firm commitments to refugees and has maintained its open-door policy for years. But, while in the past the international community lauded this commitment and its implementation, today, it is not matching this praise with resourcing (funding) commitments. 

Protecting people forced to flee is a collective global responsibility.

Today is World Refugee Day and we are reminded that protecting people forced to flee is a collective global responsibility. Let’s compare! But let’s use the comparisons to drive us to be better, to do better and to do more. Let’s not allow the numbers to limit our initiative but rather let us strive to break the barriers of our imagination and in so doing restore wholeness in a hurting world.