Cash-based Transfers Changing Lives of Refugees in Nakivale Refugee Settlement

Irene Nduusi is a widow and refugee living in Nakivale Refugee Settlement. She lost her husband during the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Together with her five children, Irene arrived in Uganda in March 2020. For the first years in the refugee settlement, Irene and her family depended solely on food distributed by the World Food Programme. She had no alternative source of income to supplement the monthly food rations.

“We used to receive food from WFP, but occasionally, it could not take me through to the next cycle of food distribution. I needed some income to supplement it as well as meet my family’s other basic needs,” Irene explains.

Irene’s life changed when WFP introduced cash transfers in Nakivale Refugee Settlement. She moved from in-kind food to cash assistance. She later joined the Family savings group and saved part of her money with the group for six months.

“I received my share at the time of sharing and bought the first sewing machine,” Irene explains.

Through the Family savings group, Irene has had two training courses from WFP in financial literacy, which has enabled her to improve her finances in terms of savings, borrowing and investment.

“After the financial literacy training, I realized that I could borrow money from the savings group and pay it back in instalments. I borrowed money to purchase a second sewing machine. The Family savings group gave me the third machine after visiting me and found many women were in need training, but the machines were not enough,” she says.

Irene currently has three sewing machines and teaches women and girls in her neighbourhood how to do tailoring. She said, “I realized many women and girls did not have jobs, I started teaching them tailoring but at a small pay.”

At family level, Irene can afford to provide a balanced diet to her five children, pay their school fees as well as meet some of their basic needs.

With funding from the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) and UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), WFP scaled up the cash-based transfer modality in all the 13 refugee settlements in Uganda. Over US$ 4 million is distributed in cash-based transfers (CBT) to over 800,00 beneficiaries monthly in Uganda.