Remarks at High-Level Dialogue on the UN Common Pledge 2.0

Guest of Honour, Rt. Hon. Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga, First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for East Africa Community Affairs

Honourable Anyakun, Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees,

Honorable Ministers Present,

• Hon. Nyirabashitsi Sarah Mateke, Minister of State for Youth and Children Affairs
• Hon. Beatrice Anywar, Minister of State for Environment

Your Excellencies (the Ambassadors),

Representatives of Development and Humanitarian Community,

Representatives from Civil Society and Private Sector,

UN colleagues joining from outside Uganda (Burundi, South Sudan, Kenya/UNHCR Regional Office and Ethiopia/UNDP RSC)

Un colleagues very much on this side of the border

UN Head of Agencies and Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning to all. On behalf of the UN country team, we are very honored to have you join us today for this dialogue – with the theme of : ‘Refugees’ inclusion in Uganda: from crisis response to durable solutions’.  I express my sincere gratitude to Office of the Prime Minister – Honorable Kadaga for your presence here today, Hon. Enyakun for your engagement in the details of the work, and Hon. Onek in Abstetia for the leadership support in co-creating this dialogue platform aimed at exploring new solutions regarding refugees residing in Uganda, whose situation is of a ‘protracted’ nature.  

I need to start with our appreciation to Uganda for her open-door policy on refugees and our collaboration in support of 1.5+ million refugees here. Uganda is a global leader in promoting peaceful coexistence and refugee settlement among host communities. As a co-convener of the 2023 Global Refugee Forum (GRF), the Government of Uganda has once again demonstrated its leadership in sharing these international responsibilities for refugees.

Uganda’s generosity is commendable, not only in the acceptance of refugees, but also in advancing their inclusion in national system and services in the last NDP – and in so doing so, the Government shows its progressive inclusion of refugees in the planning and implementation of Govt programmes and initiatives aimed at advancing the Development agenda. Equally laudable are the humanitarian and development partners who have consistently supported the Government of Uganda in this collective effort towards inclusion.

And as the morning progresses, examples of how refugee inclusion has advanced in Uganda will be later shared by Helen – our CRRF director and other colleagues in the room.

The BIG question now as regards Uganda’s refugee response is: How can we make these efforts sustainable, how do we deepen and scale up the proven concepts?

The lead-up to the Global Refugee Forum (GRF) provides an excellent opportunity for such discussions. At the GRF, Government of Uganda – alongside Governments globally- will share their commitments for refugees. The UN family also is undergoing a process to come up with a common UN pledge at both the global and national levels. (And the obvious caveat as regards UN commitments is ‘subject to the availability of funds’. The UN is an instrument that does not make is own money – we don’t levy taxes or have other means of raising financial resources. Our pledge therefore is ultimately only as good as there are financial resources made available to realize them. The UN’s greatest comparative advantage is in its specialized & technical expertise, that spans the full spectrum of the SDGs – spread across its agencies.  

We had already begun discussing issues of sustainability of the Refugee response  in Uganda in various spaces, and perhaps this might be an opportunity for all stakeholders to start the process of getting on the same page on the analysis of the challenges we are dealing with, ask the difficult questions regarding what to do about these challenges, about sustainability of the current refugee response, about scaling up efforts and then move towards co-creating solutions that may work for the challenges of today.

Based on our conversations thus far, we will share our UN in Uganda thoughts of what we think our commitments could be. Generally, it will be around renewing and strengthening our work around promotion of refugees inclusion in national plans, budgets, datasets, and service delivery systems and all this is recognition that inclusion of refugees is key to ensure that no one is left behind as we accelerate efforts under the Sustainable Development Goals. Over 20 UN entities globally have come together to co-create the Common Pledge 2.0.

In Uganda, thus far, 12 out of our 29 UN agencies signatory to the co-operation framework have come together for our collective country-level commitments, fully in alignment of priority themes in the GRF Roadmap of the Government of Uganda and the global refugee inclusion agenda.

The most important aspect of this process for us, is that we are moving away from business as usual. First, consistent with the UN reforms, we are adopting a system-wide approach – considering various dimensions of the problem, aiming towards transformation, exploring how to work better across borders, aiming to improve linkages between humanitarian and development actions, aiming for a more effective response that promotes the conditions for durable solutions. The presence of our colleagues online outside our borders, from Burundi and South Sudan, our UN Regional Offices in Nairobi speaks to our UN system-wide approach and commitment in this regard. Thank you, colleagues, for your presence. And of course, this is but a beginning, we hope to build on this going forward.  

Second, is the issue of magnitude. If we hope to truly leave no one behind, in these complicated times of pandemics, disrupted supply chains & inflation, health emergencies, extreme weather events etc. and their impact on the development trajectory, we will need broad partnerships. There is no other way, a consultative approach is the key to unlock the kind of solutions that we all are looking for.

Among the objectives of this high-level dialogue to assist the UN family identify priority areas for preparing its country-level commitments on refugee inclusion; and to help begin a broader conversation on ‘durable solutions’ for refugees in Uganda. It is our hope that the outcome of this dialogue will inform the thematic roundtables and regional symposium, being planned by the Government of Uganda, as part of its GRF’s Roadmap.

The UN’s role as regards Uganda’s refugee response is a support one. In the ideal world, we would have the outcome of the Government process to neatly fold into.  But as is the nature of these things, of course the timelines are different – we need to clarify our pledge by May, while the Government by the GRF in December– still the overlap is useful and this conversation into other and feed into other future conversations.

The UN in Uganda remains in support of the implementation of Uganda’s Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework’s (CRRF) vision of a coordinated, accountable, and sustainable refugee response for socio-economic transformation of refugees and host communities. It is my wish that Uganda’s collective effort for the refugees to be acknowledged and spread to a greater number of people through the GRF. And I anticipate this high-level dialogue to function as a catalyst to all partners on accelerating the conversation and responses on Uganda’s refugee response.

Thank you for your kind attention.