By definition, a “refugee” is any person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. When this happens, refugees are expected to be in the host country until one of three durable solutions is undertaken. One of the durable solutions occurs when refugees voluntarily return to their country of origin when they feel it is safer to do so. These movements have been observed among the South Sudanese refugees to be both temporal and permanent. In many cases, the South Sudanese have been reported to move back and forth between South Sudan and Uganda and, in some cases, between the settlements in what is being referred to as the yo-yo migration. These pendular movements are typically rational and inspired by political, social and economic reasons on both sides of the border. LWF and its partners: Community Development Support Services (CDSS) in South Sudan, and Centre for Health and Social Economic Improvement (CHASE-i)  at Makerere University obtained funding from UNOPS and European Union to implement the Cross-border Opportunities for Migration, Peace, and Self-Sustenance (COMPASS) project covering Northern Uganda and the southern part of South Sudan. The partners held the project’s inception workshop in Kitgum from 22nd  to 25th August 2022.  This inception workshop brought together refugees, humanitarian actors, academia and the governments of Uganda and South Sudan to better understand the project and strategize for sustainable impact. It emerged that the COMPASS project provides a very important platform required to harmonize the diverse perspectives and practices of different actors involved in refugee migration that need to be harmonized if any positive impact was to be achieved.

It was important refugees’ voices are heard, and ensuring their best interest is committed to by the different actors. The refugees understand and can better explain the back- and-forth migration (yoyo movements) as part of their lived experiences. As any other population category, and inspite of their circumstances, refugees are rational and have agency for their own survival; they can differentiate between what works for them and what does not. It became clear that the yo-yo movement is not a random decision but rather well-calculated as one refugee recounted during the workshop “We [refugees] feel, we can think and we want to survive… we do these things to survive”. Their movements are carefully calculated steps driven by socioeconomic, cultural aspects and access to services such as education. Despite Uganda’s open-door and friendly policy, one refugee participant reported the high levels of harassment they experience from the local authorities in the course of their movements. It is such experiences that have forced many to opt to using informal border crossing points which expose them to additional safety and protection risks. It also makes it difficult for the government and humanitarian actors to accurately monitor their movements or protect them. Refugees also cited the lack of a clear and consistent sources of information about the ever-changing situation at home as a challenge. According to them, this is particularly problematic because the security situation back at home changes rapidly. From their perspectives, humanitarian actors have to fully appreciate the role they need to play in terms of: 

1. Popularizing the guidelines on the yo-yo movement using approaches that they identify with
2. Advocating for policies that enable them to resettle decently in the host countries 
3. Working with government to ensure there is clear understanding on registration on births and deaths for proper planning 
4. Working around harmonizing the currently divergent perspectives on yo-yo movements between the refugees and government(s), further outlined below:

The local authorities: To the authorities the yo-yo movements make one’s status questionable. One of the border officials posed a pertinent question: “If a refugee moves back and forth between Uganda and South Sudan, are they still refugees, or are they business partners?” To them, this affects the country’s refugee policy where those who move back and forth hold a refugee status yet in the real sense they are ‘business men’. The government official further asked, “Should refugees that move back and forth across the border be treated as businessmen or should they continue to enjoy the protection accorded to refugees?” Currently, the refugee policy and employment policies in Uganda have limited to no intersection which brings about lack of clarity when it comes to the yo-yo movement. The government official further shared that they are expected to support the refugees abide to these policies and monitor their movements; however, they are limited by the inadequacy of resources like cars for cross-border monitoring. Moreover, they are faced with challenges of making real time decisions that are not addressed by the policies because most of them have outlived the current contexts. The local authorities also believe that the [national refugee] policy may be counterproductive to the protection of refugees, and therefore there is urgent need for innovative ways to address this matter. 

Humanitarian actors: Implementing projects in the context of such yo-yo movements comes with many challenges, one of which is tracking progress. One humanitarian worker at the workshop shared: “In a previous project we thought the it had failed when the refugees we supported with cash grants to open businesses refugees went back to South Sudan, but during this [COMPASS project] cross-border visit to Magwi, the former refugees recognized me, ran to me and hugged me, thanking me for helping to transform their lives after they returned to South Sudan” said one humanitarian worker. There is, therefore, the need to learn, improve and adapt programmes taking into account the cross-border nature of migration. When cash grants for business are issued to refugees in Uganda and they return to South Sudan, they were reported as a loss, yet the benefits of such support were critical in supporting the refugees to build resilience back at home. Another example is a woman that received goats as part of livelihood support in Palabek Refugee Settlement. The goats multiplied and she crossed back into South Sudan to look for market since she anticipated to get a better price there. All these are outcomes of interventions with cross-border implications but which many projects are not designed to monitor and evaluate due to the limited geographical focus within a single country. Clearly new ways of working are needed, as is learning between the partners, national and international actors in this space.

Academia: There is need for research and academic institutions to generate learnings for the wider humanitarian world, and for development. They also have a role to play in promoting learning and innovations owing to the wider resources to which they have access. To play this role effectively, there is need for them to learn how the humanitarian world works – the jargons, the abbreviations, the processes and even how impact (perceived or actual) is measured. Research and programming organisations truly operate in two different worlds, and there is need for them to meet in the middle, as aptly requested by a research/academic at the inception workshop for COMPASS project: “Help us understand what you do in order to add value to it and spread the work if it works, because what you are trying to do here is novel and potentially impactful”. In the research-academic world all processes have to be documented and interventions clearly outlined if they are to be measured. One would say the same applies to the NGO world – which is true, but applied differently. In the NGO world, we seem to have our own jargon, abbreviations and methods of work that we all understand; however, yet they could mean different things from one organization to another or even between individuals. Practice has shown that even popular and widely known interventions like Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA) have been implemented with modifications even within the same organization. Learning begins by clearly defining such interventions as a basis to measure their impact. Understanding our different languages is the beginning point of bridging this gap, leading to the endless supply of innovations and research from academic institutions – and supporting the impact we desire to see.  It is certainly not a comfortable process; but, academics and researchers can be powerful allies for humanitarian and development practitioners if we let and leverage their potential.

Donors: It would be interesting to have the donors sit in such fora and experience the process firsthand. Additionally, it would be good for them to communicate their priorities, challenges and limitations. It would also be interesting to have every stakeholder listen and improve their perspectives about this topic.

 The COMPASS project has been designed to include perspectives from all categories listed above, including funders – as part of the project’s Local Project Advisory Committee (LPAC). Makerere University’s CHASE-i is our learning partner; and in South Sudan we have CDSS as well as the LWF-South Sudan office working with the LWF-Uganda office to deliver on this promising initiative, with interventions tailored to the different  categories of displacement affected populations (DAPs) including refugees, returnees, IDPs and host communities. The possibilities of what could happen and positive outcomes harvested from this project are as many as the stakeholders. Walking away from this inception workshop, I am optimistic about what this project will achieve. I have a feeling it will live up to its name to harness Cross-border Opportunities for Migration, Peace and Self Sustenance (COMPASS).