In Uganda, the largest refugee-hosting nation in Africa, over 1.5 refugees displaced by conflict in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other countries have been forced to rebuild their lives in the nation. They’re critical to the region’s renewal, playing an active role in shaping the future of the region[1] despite significant challenges: limited access to health care, energy systems, and other essential, life-giving services.
In recent years, Uganda has earned international recognition for its considerate approach for refugee support, offering refugees not only shelter, but opportunities for self-sufficiency and integration. The Palabek Refugee Settlement, established in 2017 in Northern Uganda near the South Sudan border, is home to a large and growing community of South Sudanese refugees. The settlement has become a lifeline for those fleeing the ongoing conflict in South Sudan, with over 84,000 residents and an average of 30 new arrivals each day. Palabek operates under a unique self-governance model, where residents can own land and are responsible for their community’s development.
Innovation: A Driver of Change
Ugandan organizations, committed to supporting growing refugee populations to address the urgent, growing needs, are creating sustainable solutions for refugee communities. Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge partners with life-saving and life-improving innovations to enable sustainable, scalable and impactful solutions that address key challenges faced by the most vulnerable refugee populations. Since its inception, CHIC has funded 10 impactful innovations in Uganda, addressing critical needs across multiple sectors, including healthcare, energy, and life-saving information, to improve the lives of refugee communities across the country.
Late last year, CHIC team members had the privilege of travelling to Uganda and meeting three incredible innovation teams committed to driving change. The visit began with a warm welcome from local UNCHR staff and Uganda’s Office of the Prime Minister, followed by visits to three innovations in three of the nation’s regions.
THRIVE Gulu
In Palabek Settlement, Thrive Gulu is bringing healing to South Sudanese refugees through their innovation, Dance + Therapy (D+T). The mental health program combines peer-led counselling with dance to help people process trauma, reduce stress, and overcome mental health challenges. Over the course of a 12-week program, participants work through their emotional pain, learn about mental health, and rebuild connections with themselves and their community. Led by peer leaders, specifically refugees who have experienced conflict firsthand, sessions are built on a trauma recovery model that emphasizes safety, healing, and reconnecting with others. D+T not only provides a unique way to heal, but also helps break the stigma around mental health, promotes group solidarity, and gives refugees a space to find strength and resilience.
During the visit, we had the privilege of connecting with community members who have been directly and indirectly impacted by the D+T innovation. From the moment we arrived, we were warmly welcomed with traditional South Sudanese singing and dancing.
Throughout our time in Palabek, we heard moving testimonies from participants who described how D+T had transformed their approach to mental health. “Each day, I feel stronger and better,” one woman shared, expressing the renewed sense of strength the program had given her. Others spoke of finding comfort and connection through group sessions. “When I have negative thoughts, I know I can come to the group for support,” said another participant, reflecting the deep trust and solidarity fostered through D+T.
To close our visit, we had the privilege of participating in a South Sudanese cultural dance, which strengthened our connection to the community and its vibrant traditions.
Mandulis Energy
Mandulis Energy’s provides clean energy and eco-friendly cooking solutions while promoting environmental sustainability and economic growth. At the core of their model, they use agricultural residues, collected from local grinding mills within the community, as a foundation for biomass energy production. Mandulis was awarded a seed grant by Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge to provide non-carbonized briquettes for clean cooking in Kiryandogo and Lamwo districts and set up a biomass gasification plant in Got Ngur to provide electricity to the surrounding communities.
During our visit to Got Ngur in Purongo Subcounty and the clean cooking briquette plant in Olwiyo Town, we toured key facilities involved in the innovation. At the husk storage site, agricultural byproducts are prepared for conversion into biomass energy. These residues are processed in a gasifier to create syngas, a clean fuel that powers a generator, producing electricity for the community. This system feeds into a hybrid mini-grid, which blends biomass-generated power with solar energy storage to ensure consistent energy access.
Beyond electricity, Mandulis also produces non-carbonized briquettes for household cooking. A small-scale manufacturing unit processes leftover agricultural waste into cleaner-burning fuel, reducing reliance on firewood and charcoal. A larger briquette production facility, developed in partnership with an organization serving refugee populations.is nearing completion, signaling efforts to expand clean cooking solutions more broadly.
Beyond cooking fuel, the process yields biochar, a valuable byproduct used to improve soil health through carbon sequestration. Mandulis is exploring the geotagging of biochar use, with the potential to generate carbon credits as an additional revenue stream. Biochar is also being tested in construction materials, such as bricks, offering another opportunity to capture carbon in durable structures.
Lamwo and Kiryandogo host significant refugee populations, often displaced by conflict in neighboring countries, alongside host communities who face limited access to clean energy solutions and environmental challenges. By turning agricultural residues into energy, Mandulis Energy not only reduces environmental degradation but also strengthens community resilience.
In Got Ngur, we witnessed businesses such as shops, restaurants, and a small cinemas thriving with access to reliable electricity from the mini-grid. For households not yet connected, rechargeable battery packs are delivered using electric vehicles, providing an adaptable solution for off-grid areas. This model demonstrates a scalable approach to addressing energy poverty and supporting sustainable development in resource-constrained settings.
NRC Uganda
During our site visit to NRC’s operations in Kampala, we gained valuable insights into the impact of KOBLI, a digital platform designed to strengthen legal case management and other Information, Counseling, and Legal Assistance (ICLA) processes. Ourvisit began at the Access Centre, where we observed the client identification process. This office, hosted within a partner organization serving refugees and other vulnerable populations, currently relies on manual, paper-based workflows to assess clients’ needs. The ICLA team expressed enthusiasm for KOBLI’s ability to digitize and simplify these interactions, reducing administrative burdens and improving efficiency.
We also visited the ICLA center in Kampala, which handles daily legal case management. Although KOBLI’s Uganda work is not currently funded through their CHIC transition-to-scale grant, we prioritized this visit to learn from KOBLI about Uganda’s interest in adopting the platform. The nation is actively working with NRC’s digital ICLA team to explore implementation. Their priority is the legal case management module, addressing the overwhelming workload related to a significant influx of refugees. Staff highlighted that the current manual system involves an immense amount of paperwork across multiple stages of each case, creating a considerable administrative burden and leaving little time for case follow-ups. The Uganda team is exploring funding options to cover the implementation costs, underscoring their commitment to adopting digital solutions to enhance efficiency and service delivery.
Lessons Learned
Two longstanding commitments of ours were reinforced by our visit to Uganda.
Localization is vital to impactful, sustainable innovation.
Across the site visits, we witnessed how teams with deep roots in communities are committed, knowledgeable, and best suited to support them.
At THRIVE Gulu, for example, the dance therapy is led primary by refugees who deeply understand what the participants are experiencing. Ugandan staff at the organizations are also deeply dedicated to the camps they worked in, learning South Sudanese languages to enable them to connect more deeply with dance therapy participants.
Similarly, in Nwoya District, we witnessed how Peter from Mandulis Energy built trusting relationships with local communities, engaging meaningfully with the communities and receiving warm welcomes wherever he went—Mandulis Energy could not have been successful with community buy-in.
Both THRIVE Gulu and Mandulis Energy exemplify the power of localization and how when initiatives are led by people who are truly embedded in the local context, the impact is far greater.
Addressing critical community challenges requires building resilience and sustainability in challenging environments.
Both NRC Uganda and Mandulis Energy are tackling challenges and scaling up their innovations’ impact through practical, locally grounded approaches that optimize existing resources.
Mandulis Energy demonstrates how integrating renewable energy solutions can sustainably meet community energy needs and support economic activities. Their innovation reduces negative environmental impacts and strengthens community resilience by decreasing reliance on external resources. Meanwhile, NRC Uganda’s interest in adopting KOBLI reflects a forward-looking approach to streamlining legal case management in a country managing significant demand for legal assistance. Transitioning from paper-based systems to digital tools has the potential to alleviate administrative burdens, improve service delivery, and enable staff to focus on critical follow-ups.
Both initiatives show strong potential for scalability. Mandulis’s flexible energy systems can be adapted to similar settings with resource constraints, while NRC’s KOBLI platform, once implemented, could serve as a model for improving legal aid processes in other high-demand contexts. The two innovations exemplify how targeted solutions can efficiently address systemic challenges and contribute to sustainable outcomes for communities.
Conclusion
Our site visits to Uganda offered a powerful window into how locally driven innovations are tackling the complex challenges facing refugee and host communities. Experiencing these initiatives in action underscored their real-world impact and the dedication of the teams making them possible. These engagements deepened our understanding of the context, strengthened our connection to those at the heart of this work, and revealed clear opportunities to support and scale solutions that are already making a meaningful difference.