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Prevalence of food insecurity and associated factors among refugee households in Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement, Arua District, Uganda
Abstract
Introduction: Food insecurity is a big challenge in protracted refugee situations. We assessed food insecurity and the associated factors, as well as the coping strategies of the refugee households in a protracted situation in the Rhino camp settlement, to document the complexities of enhancing food security in a protracted refugee situation, and to inform the humanitarian stakeholders on how to tailor food security interventions at the local level to enhance the sustainability of refugee households in a long-time crisis.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study using the concurrent mixed methods study among 432 household heads. In addition, four key informant interviews on food insecurity were conducted with humanitarian workers. STATA version14 was used to analyse quantitative data and ATLAS ti.8 software supported the qualitative data analysis.
Results: Majority (82.4%) of the refugee households in protracted crisis were food insecure, of which over half (50.7%) were severely food insecure. The factors that were significantly associated with food insecurity were; geographical location [Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) 3.48; 95%CI: 1.23–9.17), age of household heads (AOR: 3.06, 95%CI: 1.11–8.49), education (AOR: 2.68, 95%CI: 1.31–5.47), monthly incomes (AOR: 2.14, 95%CI: 1.14–4.03), tribe (AOR: 0.33, 95%CI: 0.15–0.75), and the emergence of households that were not on initial humanitarian aid plan as shown in the qualitative results. Major food insecurity coping strategies included reducing the quantity of food cooked (54.9%), reducing the number of meals per day (28%), and selling domestic assets to buy food (21.7%).
Conclusion: Food insecurity is high among households in a protracted refugee situation in the Rhino camp settlement despite the long-existing interventions for enhancing the sustainability of the refugee households. There is a need to improve on the identified modifiable factors such as relocation of some of the refugee households into areas that can support crop production, improving education status and the monthly incomes of refugees, and also to recognize the emerging households that are not on the initial humanitarian aid plan.
