When Cash Reaches Refugees, Local Markets Respond: A Trader’s Story from Adjumani

For years, refugees in Uganda received food and core relief items delivered by trucks across the settlements. Today, that approach is changing. Humanitarian agencies are increasingly providing cash instead, allowing families to decide what they need most.
This shift is not only restoring dignity. It is quietly transforming local markets. In Adjumani District, northern Uganda, trader Adrupio Margret has seen that change firsthand.

Margret has spent more than 15 years building her livelihood through small-scale trade. She started in 2011, selling rice and vegetables in Adjumani Main Market. Over time, she built a steady customer base, but growing competition brought tension. Disputes with other vendors escalated, and after a frightening incident, she chose to leave the market for her safety. 

“I was threatened by one person who attempted to knock me down with a vehicle, and this scared me a lot. Not only that, I witnessed signs of witchcraft within the same period. I had no option other than to shift and change my business location,” she said. 

She moved her business closer to home, setting up a small kiosk and starting over. This time, she shifted to trading maize, buying from farmers in Apaa and transporting it to town. The costs were high, and profits were uncertain.

Everything changed in 2022 when cash assistance expanded across nearby refugee settlements.
On distribution days, refugees receive money and head to local markets to buy food and essentials. Margret quickly noticed the pattern. Demand for maize surged, and she adapted. She began sending assistants to sell in settlements like Nyumanzi and Pagirinya while she managed supply.
The results were immediate. On a recent distribution day, she transported five sacks of maize with each weighing between 190kgs and 200kgs. By mid-afternoon, she had already sold nearly two sacks with a kilogram going for UGX 1,500 (0.40$) and each sack expected to earn her around UGX 285,000 (75.69$). By the end of the day, she expected to sell all five and go home with far more than she used to earn in the main market.
The income is helping her rebuild stability. She is paying school fees for her daughter and reinvesting in her business.

Margret’s story reflects a wider shift. Cash assistance is faster and more flexible than delivering food, and it allows families to make their own choices. At the same time, it injects money into local economies, creating opportunities for traders and small business owners in the refugee-hosting districts.

But the transition is not without challenges.
When many households receive cash at once, demand can rise quickly. If traders cannot stock enough goods, prices may increase. Rural markets, in particular, can struggle to keep up. Traders also face practical issues like network disruptions during mobile money transactions, as well as policy changes like recategorization that affect refugees’ purchasing power.
Despite this, Margret sees the bigger picture.

“Although these changes sometimes affect our business, many women and girls depend on these markets just like I do, and it's helping us earn a living,” she says.

Uganda’s refugee model has long encouraged integration between refugees and host communities. Cash assistance is strengthening that connection in new ways. Refugees are not just recipients of aid. They are active participants in local economies as customers, workers, and entrepreneurs.
For Margret, the shift to cash has meant more than higher sales. It has restored her sense of possibility.

As local markets continue to grow alongside humanitarian programmes, cash assistance is doing more than meeting immediate needs. It is supporting businesses, strengthening communities and building shared economic resilience in places like Adjumani.