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Just past 10 a.m., our car rolls into the Kiryandongo refugee settlement. The dust does not so much rise as hang in the dry May air. A boy of about four scampers across the compound, sees the car, and hides behind a tarpaulin-walled, wood-framed house. From the side of that house, a woman steps into the light. She is tall, in a long dark dress, with a headscarf wrapped under her chin. Her eyes are very steady. “You’re welcome,” she says, beaming.This is Zahra. She is 34, a primary school teacher, and the mother of four boys and one girl. Sixteen months ago, she was at the front of a classroom in Sudan, teaching children to read. Today, she is a refugee in northern Uganda, one of more than 2 million refugees the country hosts — including over 1.1 million in northern Uganda. After funding shortfalls forced WFP to target food assistance to the most vulnerable starting in May 2025, Zahra is among the 843,000 refugees still eligible for monthly food assistance from the World Food Programme (WFP). Most, like her, receive that assistance through digital cash-based transfers such as mobile money or agency banking.She motions us to a low wooden stool beneath a large mango tree in her compound. We sit. The boy edges out from his hiding place and circles. Zahra recalls how it all began.She came to Uganda in 2024. “Because of the war in Sudan,” she says, looking at her hands. That is all she will say of it. Instead, she describes the road south. A bus. Then another bus. A border. A registration point at Nyumanzi Refugee Settlement. A bus, hours further south, to Kiryandongo — another settlement that until recently had mostly hosted families from South Sudan. The day she arrived, she says, WFP staff handed her a bag. “They gave us maize,” she says, counting on her fingers. “And rice. And cooking oil. And salt. And beans.”For six months, she received in-kind food before being enrolled in cash assistance, which gave her the choice to buy her preferred food in local markets.The physical distribution days are still with her. “We would wake up early in the morning to prepare,” she says. “The children would still be sleeping. I would leave them with the eldest. I would walk in the dark and stand in the queue.” The queue was slow: “You are tired. You are hungry. The children at home are also waiting. And then WFP brought the mobile money, and queuing stopped.” Mobile money means families receive their WFP food assistance as cash on a phone or through an e-wallet connected to their SIM card, instead of collecting in-kind food. For refugees like Zahra, it brings simple but important choices: what to buy, when to buy it, and how to balance food with other urgent household needs. It also keeps money moving in nearby shops and markets, supporting local traders while helping families eat in ways that better reflect their needs and preferences.By the end of 2025, 72 percent of refugees receiving WFP support in Uganda were getting it through cash — mobile money, agency banking, or cash in hand. For women, the shift to digital cash-based transfers has meant fewer hours in queues and more direct control over the household purse.Zahra reaches for her phone. She scrolls, finds last week’s message, and turns the screen toward us. “That’s the message. It’s a lifeline for us, but it is not enough,” she says, before we can ask. “Twenty days. Sometimes less. Then we borrow from the neighbours’ shops. When the next transfer comes, we pay.”When we ask about home, her face changes. Light comes into it. “I was a teacher,” she says. “Primary. The young ones. The school had a bus. I would take my own children on the bus. We would sing.” A pause. “My house was nice. We had a garden. There was a tree. I do not know if the tree is still there.” Her eyes fall. The tears come quietly.Before we leave, she looks down at her son. “I want my children to be free people,” she says. “I want them to be like other children.” Today, Zahra offers English lessons to help children in the settlement integrate and communicate.A 2026 CALP Network study found cash assistance more efficient than in-kind food aid at scale, generating up to 1.5 times more local market activity where markets function well. WFP data separately shows that cash transfers generate about US$1.6 in local economic activity for every US$1 disbursed, benefiting both recipients and host communities while strengthening the financial sector.In Kiryandongo, the choice is real. The message arrives. Zahra buys what is most urgent, pays the shopkeeper, and puts the meal on the table for her family.WFP Uganda’s cash-based transfers under the General Food Assistance (GFA) programme for refugees are made possible thanks to the generous support of Canada, Denmark, the Eastern and Southern Africa Humanitarian Fund (ESAHF), the European Union – Humanitarian Aid (ECHO), Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom (FCDO), and the United States of America.