Bidi-Bidi, in North Uganda, started receiving refugees in September 2016, when thousands of civilians fled the civil war In South Sudan, mainly women and children who had to leave with nothing and start from scratch. The number of refugees adds up to over 300,000, a real city, the biggest camp in the world.

UNHCR, Doctors without borders, Unicef and many other organizations started organizing the camp, offering materials to build a house, water tanks, clinics and schools, amongst other things. One year later, resources are running short, the state of emergency is no more and therefore funds are tight. But war continues in South Sudan and so does the Bidi-Bidi camp.

From the air Bidi Bidi looks like a huge plastic city, from the view of the plastic tarpaulins donated by UNHCR to protect refugees from rain and sun. It is as big as the two second largest cities in the country. When we visited the camp in September 2016 with our local partners, we had no clue how or where to begin with. It felt like we had to build a whole city from scratch, a larger than life challenge!

With this in mind, our local partners Africa Directo y Marian Brothers, decided to focus on women economic empowerment and designed a program to guarantee the survival of refugees using a sustainable development tool. The result was a microcredit program for women:

The first phase consists in promoting savings, organizing the women in groups of at least 7 members, encouraging solidarity and shared responsibility. During this phase women are trained in microcredits, planning and basic business management, and the groups put together the so called “social funds”, which entitle members to take loans with no interests for emergencies. To join the program women must be part of a saving group and have an economic activity.

Each woman receives a loan of approximately 22€ at a 10% total interest, to be paid back weekly in a total of 35 weeks, at the amount that each woman can afford based on their income. The saving group works as a guarantee for potential outstanding payments in the group. So far, 150 women and families have benefited from the loans, contributing to the development of a basic survival economic structure at Bidi Bidi. Our objective is to increase the number of beneficiaries.

UNHCR has chosen this project as a role model of an economic intervention within an emergency context. We are very proud of our social partners and their work to improve the lives of the refugees.