Shepherd Mutsvara

Shepherd Mutsvara's Bio

Shepherd Mutsvara is a Ph.D. candidate in the Institute of Political Sciences at the Pedagogical University of Cracow. His supervisor is Prof.dr.hab. Joanna Bar. He joined the Human Rights Centre in November 2020 by working together with prof. Ellen Desmet of Ghent University, who became his co-supervisor for his doctoral research on “Economic refugees: An analysis of persecution and displacement in the new global era”. Besides being a journal peer reviewer for Migration Letters and Refugee Review, Shepherd is also a Research Affiliate with the Refugee Law Initiative and a member in good standing with the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law (Africa Research Group). Going forward to 2021, Shepherd intends to expand his knowledge on Third Party Monitoring (TPM) in development and humanitarian programmes in the MENA region by taking up a remote internship with a Turkey based humanitarian organisation.

Shepherd Mutsvara's Featured Research Projects

Shepherd Mutsvara's Featured Publications

• Psychosocial Support and Protection for Refugee and Host Communities in Uganda: A Needs Assessment
  Introduction: Established in 1964 and hosting over 76,000 refugees, Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement in Western Uganda was the focus of this study of existing structures and systems providing for the psychosocial and protection needs of both refugees and host communities. Methodology: The cross-sectional study with both qualitative and quantitative elements used focus group discussions (fgd s) and in-depth interviews with key informants working with organisations supporting refugees and host communities. Further, an individual household assessment of refugees (n=200) and host communities (n=100) was carried out using a free-listing questionnaire. Results: The traumatic situations of both refugees and host communities has led to high levels of fear, mood changes, stress and anxiety. This is further compounded by stressful situations such as competition for meagre resources and weak community-based interventions for psychosocial support and protection. Conclusion: Community resource mobilisation, counselling and mainstreaming psychosocial support through beneficiary participation is warranted. The humanitarian organisations and the Ugandan government need to establish specialised psychosocial support systems and protection strategies aimed at addressing the psychological needs of both communities.
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