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This fact sheet presents highlights from the endline survey of the Financial Inclusion for Refugees Project (FI4R), conducted by FSD Uganda and FSD Africa. The project aimed to support financial service providers in offering services to refugees and host communities in Uganda, utilizing financial diaries to track livelihood strategies and the impact of new financial products between Q1 2020 (baseline) and Q4 2021 (endline).

This 2005 briefing describes the insurgency in northern Uganda as a 'war against children,' highlighting the LRA's systematic abduction of youth and the resulting displacement of over 1.6 million people into squalid 'protected villages.' It critiques the Ugandan government's military failures, including Operation Iron Fist I, and discusses the complex regional involvement of Sudan. The report emphasizes the collapse of health and education services in the north and the challenges of achieving peace through the International Criminal Court's warrants and local amnesty processes.

The Financial Inclusion for Refugees (FI4R) project, launched in 2019 by FSD Africa in partnership with FSD Uganda, Access to Finance Rwanda, and BFA Global, aims to provide financial services to forcibly displaced people (FDPs) and host communities. The project focuses on overcoming barriers such as insufficient documentation and perceived risk to enable refugees to access loans, savings, and digital payments.

This monograph by the Institute for Security Studies examines the structural causes and dynamics of the war in northern Uganda, which had lasted nearly 18 years at the time of writing. The authors argue that the conflict consists of two distinct elements: a deep-rooted northern rebellion against the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government and a separate war waged by Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which is driven by apocalyptic spiritualism rather than conventional political goals. The report highlights how the consequences of the war, including mass displacement and a perceived war economy, have become drivers for its continuation, and it provides a series of recommendations for resolution, including a Truth and Reconciliation process and a shift in military strategy toward civilian protection.