Rebuilding after Displacement: Peer Support and Refugee Resilience in Uganda

Last registered on September 25, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Rebuilding after Displacement: Peer Support and Refugee Resilience in Uganda
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0019766
Initial registration date
September 18, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
September 25, 2026, 9:59 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Uganda
Region
Western

Primary Investigator

Name
Till Wicker
Affiliation
Academia Sinica
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Natalia Seimel
PI Affiliation
Tilburg University
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PI Name
Dalton Dalton
PI Affiliation
Tilburg University
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PI Name
Daan van Soest
PI Affiliation
Tilburg University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2026-08-24
End date
2027-12-31
Keywords
Behavior, Labor, Post-conflict, Welfare
Additional Keywords
Volunteering, refugee, social cohesion, community engagement, psychosocial wellbeing, Uganda
JEL code(s)
C93; J24; I31; O12; D64; F22
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Forced displacement is a profound economic, social, and psychological shock. Newly arrived refugees must learn how to generate income, access services, and navigate an unfamiliar environment. Many struggle because they lack information, local connections, and confidence. At the same time, more established refugees have accumulated settlement-specific knowledge, skills, and social networks, and may have time and a willingness to help. Search and matching frictions, lack of trust, geographic distance, and uncertainty about others' needs and abilities can nevertheless prevent mutually beneficial relationships from forming.

We design and evaluate the Buddy Program, a matching intervention that pairs recently arrived refugee households with more established refugee households in Kyangwali refugee settlement, Uganda. Pairs are formed based on a shared language, gender preferences, and geographic proximity. We form 600 pairs (1,200 households) and randomly assign them either to the Buddy Program or to a control group. In treated pairs, the two households are introduced through a facilitated meeting and agree on how they will interact and how the established household may support the newcomer. Control pairs are not introduced. Support is non-financial and may include practical assistance, information, accompaniment, and connections to services or economic opportunities.

We study effects on both sides of the match. We combine baseline data with follow-up surveys. The midline, conducted shortly after the Buddy Program ends, focuses on psychological well-being, time use, and social outcomes, including social cohesion, belonging, social capital, and community engagement. Secondary outcomes include physical health, food security, employment and labor supply, land access, financial resilience, responses to shocks, and access to humanitarian assistance. An endline approximately six months later will examine whether effects persist and whether more downstream economic outcomes, particularly employment and financial outcomes, emerge over time.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Dalton, Dalton et al. 2026. "Rebuilding after Displacement: Peer Support and Refugee Resilience in Uganda." AEA RCT Registry. September 25. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19766-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention, the Buddy Program, pairs a recently arrived refugee household (settled in Kyangwali refugee settlement, Uganda, within the last 18 months) with a more established refugee household (resident for at least 2 years). Pairs are formed one-to-one by an optimal matching algorithm that requires the two households to share a language and to satisfy each other's stated gender and household composition preference for the counterpart, and that minimizes the walking distance between them (see Experimental Design for details).

Treatment (Buddy Program): The two households of a pair are introduced to each other in a structured introductory meeting facilitated by a staff member of our partner NGO (AVSI Foundation), following an agreed-upon script. Both households are introduced to the volunteering project and informed that they have been matched. During the meeting, the households agree upon how the established household will support the newcomer (the assistance is non-financial and may include practical help such as fixing the house or fetching water, information, accompaniment, talking, and connections to services or income-generating opportunities) and the frequency of interaction, and exchange contact details. The intervention runs for three months. Over the course of three months, our partner NGO monitors time-use activities of the paired newly arrived and established households using three short follow-up surveys.

Control: Status quo. The paired newly arrived and established households are not introduced to each other. Over the course of three months, our partner NGO monitors time-use activities of the paired newly arrived and established households using three short follow-up surveys.
Intervention Start Date
2026-09-17
Intervention End Date
2026-12-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Midline survey:
1. Psychological well-being:
2. Time use
3. Social fabric and cohesion:
Endline: same primary outcome variables as at midline, in addition to consumption, financial outcomes (e.g., income, savings, loans), employment outcomes, and a revealed preference measure of the value of the volunteering program.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
1. Physical health:
2. Food security:
3. Employment opportunities
5. Land access
6. Financial resilience
7. Response to shocks
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The sample consists of 1,200 refugee households in the Bukinda area of Kyangwali refugee settlement, western Uganda, an area with mixed villages in which both newly arrived and established refugees reside. Using OPM/UNHCR administrative data, we identified and listed 714 newly arrived households (settled within the last 18 months) and 789 established households (resident for at least 2 years). The listing recorded household demographics, GPS coordinates, willingness to take part, the preferred gender of the counterpart, and the interview language.

Each newly arrived household is paired one-to-one with an established household by an exact assignment algorithm subject to three hard constraints: (1) each household's stated gender preference for its counterpart (female, male, or any) is satisfied; (2) both households were interviewed in the same language, which must be Swahili or Alur; and (3) the distance between them lies between 150 and 2,000 meters. Subject to these, the algorithm maximizes the number of pairs and then minimizes the sum of squared distances. The final pairing is drawn by lot from 500 near-optimal candidate matchings. This yielded 631 pairs; 600 are selected for the RCT and 31 are replacements.

After a baseline survey with all 1,200 household heads (September 2026), pairs are randomized into Buddy Program - treatment (300 pairs) and control (300 pairs). The Buddy Program runs for three months, until mid-December 2026, with two follow-up surveys of all pairs during the intervention, a midline survey at the end of the intervention (January 2027), and an endline survey six months post-midline (July 2027).
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done by a computer. After the baseline survey, the 600 household pairs will be randomly assigned to the treatment or control group using a computer, stratified by (i) the distance between the two households of the pair (median split), (ii) the gender composition of the two household heads who completed the baseline survey (both male, both female, or mixed), and (iii) the quality of the match (median split).
Randomization Unit
Household pair, consisting of one newly arrived refugee household and one established refugee household.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
600 household pairs (each containing one newly arrived and one established household).
Sample size: planned number of observations
1,200 refugee households (600 newly arrived households and 600 established households), with the household head as the respondent.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Treatment (Buddy Program): 300 pairs = 600 households (300 volunteer households and 300 recipient households).
Control (status quo): 300 pairs = 600 households (300 established households and 300 newly arrived households).
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Power calculations are based on two-sided t-tests of independent samples at the 5% significance level, assuming 10% attrition and that stratification variables explain 10% of the variance in the outcomes. Analyzing volunteer households and recipient households separately (n = 600 each, 300 treatment and 300 control), the study has 80% power to detect an effect size of 0.23 standard deviations (power of 0.45, 0.69, 0.86, and 0.96 for effect sizes of 0.15, 0.20, 0.25, and 0.30 s.d., respectively). Pooling volunteer and recipient households (n = 1,200), the study has 80% power to detect an effect size of 0.16 standard deviations (power of 0.73, 0.93, 0.99, and 0.99 for effect sizes of 0.15, 0.20, 0.25, and 0.30 s.d., respectively).
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
TiSEM Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2026-05-25
IRB Approval Number
FUL 2025-013
IRB Name
Mildmay Uganda Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2026-09-02
IRB Approval Number
MUREC-2026-252
Analysis Plan