Livelihood strategies ofrefugees: : A study of NakivaleRefugee Settlement in Uganda

Every day people are forced by either, war, conflict, natural disasters or other uncontrollable circumstances to either leave their native lands to seek refuge in other nations or they are being displaced within their country. While they may find temporal succour from the disasters that push them out of their country, they are yet faced with other greater challenges as they become highly dependent on the generosity of the international community and the receiving countries for their survival and livelihood. In most cases if not all, the reliance on handouts from the international community and the host government leaves these people of concern more vulnerable and become more dependent on humanitarian assistance. In situations where humanitarian assistance cannot sufficiently provide for the basic needs of displaced persons, they seek alternative ways to negotiate livelihoods. The benefit of social networks has been established to be resourceful to people of this category; however, when positive coping mechanism becomes disenfranchised some indulge in negative coping mechanisms.The sustainable livelihood framework will be applied to understand the vulnerability context of refugees in the settlement. This model looks at the various capital assets available for the refugees and the various possibilities of negotiating a better live in the settlement. The study shows that refugees are entrapped in the settlement with little options to seek alternative means to survive. Refugees are actively adopting survival strategies such as petty trading, farming and labour assistance to the locals among others.This paper explore the various strategies implored by the refugees in negotiating livelihoods and the role of agencies in promoting livelihood options that are impacting the refugees positively within the settlement. These options provides independence to refugees and lessen the burden of host communities