From September 15 to 16, 2026, the World Bank, the Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement, and the UNHCR Regional Bureau for Eastern and Southern Africa will co-convene a Regional Dialogue on Evidence to Inform Refugee and Host Community Inclusion and Self-Reliance at the Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. You can register here.

The two-day event will bring together government officials and policymakers from Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia, together with development partners, academics, and private sector representatives, to examine the evidence on forced displacement and discuss sustainable responses to it. The dialogue aims to strengthen awareness of data, analytics, and operational lessons on refugee and host community inclusion and self-reliance, to identify where evidence gaps remain, to explore how evidence can better inform policies and operations in the region, and to facilitate peer learning across the three countries.

Program highlights:

Day 1 (Sept 15) — Opening and strategic framing; contextualizing the “50 by 35” targets and self-reliance for East Africa; a comparative government discussion on Kenya’s Shirika Plan, Ethiopia’s Makatet Roadmap, and Uganda’s inclusion/transition strategies; making displacement data usable in national systems; and out-of-camp approaches to sustainable settlement.

Day 2 (Sept 16) — Predictive modeling for refugee inflow preparedness (drawing on Uganda’s experience); country case studies on economic inclusion and self-reliance pathways; pathways to scale jobs and private sector engagement; how evidence enters policy and operations; and key takeaways/closing.