OPM ADVOCATES FOR PEACEFUL ACQUISITION OF FARMLAND BY REFUGEES FROM THE HOST COMMUNITY
By Sunday Amandi
Arua city
The office of the prime minister and the implementing partners in the refugee settlements are advocating for peaceful land acquisition mechanisms from the host communities as refugees seek for additional land for agriculture.
With a few partners working on ground in providing services to the refugees in the settlements due to the funding gaps and meager resources, farming has become the most reliable alternative for the refugees to support their livelihood, but there are challenges of land conflicts between the refugees and the land owners over the utilization of the farmlands.
Jacqueline Atimango, the gender officer with Danish Refugee Council explains that, these cases are derailing the efforts by the refugees to supplement the little from the implementing partners,
“Because funding has reduced, the only option is to try agriculture, there are situations where agreement on land has been done informally with the land loads, but you find the land loads don’t honor these agreements, the land loads keep re-renting the land to more people, so this brings disagreements between the refugees and the host community and this limits their participation in agriculture,” Jacqueline said.
However, Jena Toma, the deputy refugee desk officer for office of the prime minister calls for formal agreements between the refugees and the land owners to allow peaceful land use,
“We usually encourage the refugees to enter in to their own negotiations with the host to get land especially for farming, when they have got that land, they should have a small agreement which should be witnessed by the local leadership, most of these cases are as a result of having that undocumented land use,” said Toma.
Atimango calls for support for the community structures to resolve the challenges that arise over land matters in the settlements,
“Any other partner on ground who has the resources, or the opportunity or the mandate, lets support the community structures on ground, because they are the eyes of the government, they are the eyes of UNHCR, they are the eyes of the partners on ground, ”Atimango said.
Farming serves as the primary way for refugee households to grow fresh food and reduce total reliance on shrinking international food rations,
However, the standard settlement allocations are insufficient for sustainable subsistence farming, driving refugees to informally clear, rent or encroach upon adjacent host community land.
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