Between Voice and Constraint: Refugee Leadership and Humanitarian Governance in Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda

Executive Summary

Contemporary humanitarian responses increasingly depend upon refugee leaders and refugee-led organisations to mobilise communities, facilitate implementation, and sustain everyday governance within displacement settings. Yet comparatively little is known about how authority is organised around these intermediary roles or how refugee leaders navigate the institutional arrangements within which they operate. This study examines how refugee leadership operates within Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda, drawing on qualitative data from forty-one participants, including representatives of refugee-led organisations, Refugee Welfare Council leaders, and officials from the Office of the Prime Minister. The findings highlight the centrality of refugee leaders as intermediary actors within settlement governance. They facilitate communication, translate institutional priorities, mobilise communities, and manage local tensions, thereby contributing to the everyday functioning of governance processes. At the same time, their involvement was concentrated primarily within consultation, coordination, and implementation activities, while authority over programme design, resource allocation, and strategic priorities remained institutionally concentrated elsewhere. To account for this dynamic, the study develops the concept of bounded participation, understood as a condition in which responsibilities for communication, consultation, mobilisation, and implementation become institutionally separated from authority over priorities, resources, and strategic decisions. The concept is proposed as one analytical lens for examining humanitarian governance, refugee leadership, and participation by drawing attention to how governance systems may expand opportunities for engagement while maintaining uneven distributions of authority. The findings from Nakivale Refugee Settlement suggest that strengthening refugee participation requires attention not only to opportunities for inclusion but also to the institutional relationships through which influence, accountability, and decision-making authority are organised, with important implications for refugee wellbeing and human security.