Mobile money and refugee entrepreneurship in Nakivale, Uganda: digital social innovation under stratified inclusion

Digital technologies are increasingly embedded within refugee livelihoods, yet little is known about how these tools reshape entrepreneurial participation within displacement contexts. Responding to recent calls for relevant and rigorous research into inclusive entrepreneurship and technological innovation among marginalized populations, this study examines how mobile money and digital tools function as bottom-up forms of digital social innovation among refugee entrepreneurs in Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda. Adopting an interpretivist qualitative design, the study conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 27 refugee entrepreneurs operating informal grocery, food vending, transport, and retail enterprises. Sampling adequacy was established through the principle of information power, and data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings reveal that mobile money and digital communication tools operate as everyday commercial practices that reshape informal trade by overcoming distance and time barriers, enabling remote payment confirmation, improving supplier coordination, and mobilizing informal financial support from family and community networks. However, digital participation remains deeply unequal: literacy barriers, high transaction fees, lack of electricity, and unstable network connectivity create substantial practical hurdles. To navigate these challenges, entrepreneurs rely on family, youth, and peer support networks to help them conduct digital transactions. The study concludes that digital social innovation in displacement settings is not a simple technological fix but a creative, bottom-up reorganization of economic life under displacement conditions. We advance a conceptual framework linking digital social innovation, unequal digital access, and refugee livelihood resilience, offering critical implications for inclusive digital policy, humanitarian interventions and mobile financial governance.