Chinese State-owned Enterprise Investments in Uganda: Findings from a Recent Survey of Chinese Firms in Kampala

Within the large body of China-Africa literature, there is a growing body of literature that differentiates between China’s various economic actors, more specifically between its state-owned and private enterprises. This paper intends to contribute to this literature by comparing Chinese state-owned enterprises and hybrid (mixed owned) enterprises with private enterprises in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. An air of mystery often surrounds Chinese companies in Africa, this paper will provide some clarity concerning companies in Kampala. To do this we first look at the governmental assistance given to these companies, then the kind of assistance they potentially receive. Next we investigate what motivated these companies to come to Uganda, and how they established themselves, whether it is after a Chinese aid project or construction job, or some other route. We further investigate the size, employment policy and markets of these Chinese state-owned enterprises in Kampala. Finally we look at the employment of Ugandan labour and management, the problems faced by the enterprises and the environmental challenges, as well as how these are dealt with. We conclude that Chinese SOEs and mixed ownership companies in Uganda are involved in a small range of sectors, often capital-intensive sectors such as oil and construction, and are therefore also larger than the majority of the Chinese private enterprises. SOEs and mixed ownership enterprises tend to have arrived in Uganda earlier than most private enterprises, face slightly different problems, and are more interested in the Ugandan market as whole than their privately owned counterparts. More importantly, they have greater proportions of local employees and are more interested in indigenizing their workforces.     

Decentralization and Development in Contemporary Uganda

Abstract

There has long been an emphasis on the importance of decentralization in providing better quality public services in the developing world. In order to assess the effectiveness of decentralization I examine here the case study of Uganda, which has seen major decentralization of power over the last quarter-century. In particular the current government has introduced a five-tiered local government structure, decentralized both fiscal and political power to local governments and introduced regular local government elections. However, initial excitement about Uganda's decentralization programme has tapered off in recent years due to a number of problems outlined here. In particular, I show that decentralization in Uganda has suffered from a lack of independence from central government control, which has led to a lack of effectiveness in the provision of high quality public goods.     

Administrative aspects of the Uganda election—December 1980: A comparison with Zimbabwe

Since international observers were used to give legitimacy both to the Uganda and Zimbabwe elections in 1980 there is an obvious point of comparison between them. Despite this initial similarity comparing the administration of the elections in the two emphasizes the differences and draws attention to the administrative problems in Uganda resulting from the use of a law and procedures which derived from different circumstances in the country and which assumed an experience in operating elections which was largely lacking. This article explains problems encountered and points to lessons to be learnt.     

No One To Stand By Us: Reintegrating Formerly Abducted Child-Mothers in Uganda

The returnee child-mothers who have survived abduction by the Lord's Resistance Army return to civilian communities in Northern Uganda as stigmatized outsiders. They are child-mothers with children who are not accepted by the community. Years after they have returned to civilian communities they are struggling for themselves and their children. This failure to access security on a social, economic and personal level is found to garner further insecurities including neglect and abuse, which prevail and are passed on to their children. The need to provide reintegration and reconciliation assistance is recognized by both the international community and the Government of Uganda; however, it is found that assistance is failing to help this group of formerly abducted people to reintegrate in communities. This article analyses the multi-faceted perceptions and experiences of reintegration, identifying root causes and gaps where assistance can provide security and integration to these returnees.     

Confronting the Reality of Gender-based Violence in Northern Uganda

Two decades of conflict in northern Uganda have had a devastatingimpact on the lives of thousands of civilians. Like so manyof today's ‘dirty wars,’ gender-related crimes havebeen pervasive. While numerous disciplines over the past centuryhave developed sophisticated theories for understanding thenature and agency surrounding sexual offences, the nascent fieldof transitional justice is only just beginning to grapple withthese issues or design appropriate measures of redress. Thispaper is based on research undertaken to look at issues of gender-basedviolence (GBV) in four camps for the internally displaced innorthern Uganda in order to provide insight into the natureand prevalence of GBV within a specific context. The findingsshow that specific GBV dynamics need to be scrutinised withinzones of conflict and taken into consideration in the policiesadopted post-conflict. The paper both illuminates the natureof such abuses within the Ugandan context and points to theneed for concerted attention to be paid to the pervasive genderdimensions of violence when designing transitional justice mechanisms.     

The Haunting of Alice: Local Approaches to Justice and Reconciliation in Northern Uganda

Through the story of a former rebel fighter, this article examinessome of the justice and reconciliation challenges in northernUganda today. While talks between the Lord's Resistance Army(LRA) and Government of Uganda have generated the best chancefor peace in the 20-year conflict, the International CriminalCourt's indictment of rebel leaders threatens this process.The rebels refuse to disarm if indicted; the Chief Prosecutorrefuses to withdraw indictments as he believes withdrawal willfoster impunity. To resolve this dilemma, local cultural andreligious leaders advocate adapting local justice and reconciliationmechanisms to the situation, arguing that these will both holdrebels accountable and achieve peace. However, little is knownabout local justice processes or their potential to foster reconciliationin war-torn northern Uganda. On the basis of participatory research(2004–2006) with war-affected persons, the article seeksto address this gap, illustrating the potential and limitationsof such locally relevant mechanisms.     

‘The Cooling of Hearts’: Community Truth-Telling in Northern Uganda

Recent national and international debates on truth and reconciliation in Uganda have emphasized the importance of incorporating local-level mechanisms into a national transitional justice strategy. The Juba Peace Talks represented an opportunity to develop and articulate sufficient and just alternatives and complementary mechanisms to the international criminal model. The most commonly debated mechanism is the Acholi process known as mato oput (drinking the bitter root), a restorative justice approach to murder. Drawing on 2 months of research in nine internally displaced persons’ camps in 2007, we examine local justice practices in the region of northern Uganda to consider their potential, promise and pitfalls to realizing a successful truth-telling process. We find that although local mechanisms could help facilitate reconciliation in the region, truth-telling is but one part of a conciliatory process complicated by a national context of fear and the complexity of the victim–perpetrator identity at the community level. These locally informed insights help move forward the debate on such mechanisms in Uganda and add useful insights into community processes in the field of transitional justice more generally.     

The Crime Preventers Scheme: A Community Policing Initiative for Regime Security in Uganda

ABSTRACT

For decades, Uganda has received substantial support from development partners to implement Security Sector Reforms (SSR). Using the crime preventers’ scheme that has been implemented by Uganda Police as an element of community policing, I argue that SSR achievements in the country seem unclear and limited. Based on an ethnographic study I illustrate that the widespread crime preventers’ scheme has had contrasting effects on the Ugandan security architecture. The scheme seems to have reduced the police-citizens social distance and augmented police presence while simultaneously cased operational excesses and is routinely used in regime security strategies. To provide a better conceptualization I ask and answer a number of questions; how and why has the crime preventers’ scheme been initiated? How is the scheme related to community policing as we know it? What is the political role of the crime preventers? What motivates people to become active members of the crime preventers’ scheme? How does the scheme empirically operate?     

Child rights and protection in slum settlements of Kampala,Uganda: A qualitative study

Child abuse and neglect are complex and polarizing issues in many low and middle income countries. We explore them through a situation analysis of child rights and protection in Uganda. A qualitative study, incorporating 10 focus group discussions (FGDs; N = 113) and 20 individual interviews was undertaken in Kampala, Uganda. Emerging themes were grouped into family and community-level factors; legal framework, structure and continuum of services, and human and financial resources. Violation of child rights was characterized by physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and exploitation; child neglect, homelessness, and child labor; dysfunctional families and abject poverty; and poor accommodation conditions; school drop-out due to economic hardship; early pregnancy, and social exclusion. Legal and regulatory factors included traditional harmful practices (including child sacrifice and witchcraft practices); forced marriage; and the perceived lack of the government's commitment to child protection. Without a strong legislation that protects children against abuse, promotes confidential reporting systems, and tackles domestic violence, children will still remain prone to various forms of abuses and exploitation.     

Reassessing popular participation in Uganda

The 1980s saw the emergence of popular participation as a mechanism for promoting good governance in developing countries Good governance was seen as crucial to efforts to improve the welfare of poor people in countries where elites had hitherto benefited disproportionately from policies conceived at the top without reference to ordinary citizens at the bottom. Donor pressure helped accelerate the change. In Uganda these developments coincided with the rise to power of a government that sought to democratise the country's politics. A major plank in the democratisation agenda was the establishment of a participatory system of local administration in which ordinary citizens, facilitated by local councils, would participate in public affairs and influence the way government functioned. These aspirations coincided with those of the donor community and enthusiasts of popular participation. This article is an account of the evolution of village councils and popular participation from 1986, when the National Resistance Movement came to power in Uganda, to 1996. It shows that while at the beginning the introduction of local councils seized the public's imagination leading to high levels of participation, with time, public meetings as consultative fora succumbed to atrophy due to participation fatigue and unwarranted assumptions about the feasibility and utility of popular participation as an administrative and policy‐making devise. It calls for political history and the socio‐cultural context to be taken into account in efforts to promote participation. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aids, Policy and Politics: East Africa in Comparative Perspective

Policy analysis in developing country contexts poses special challenges. Very little is known about the policy process in these countries. Trying to rein the cultural, organizational and political factors that affect problem solving becomes an inductive search beyond the logic of conventional models of analysis. Using the AIDS issue as a case study, this article tries to throw light on the policy process in the three East African countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda with a view to highlighting the challenges of policy analysis in developing country contexts.     

Technological Distribution in Uganda: Information and Communications Technology and the State in an Eastern African Nation

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) include old technologies—such as the radio and the television—as well as newer technologies—such as the Internet and wireless telephony. This study considers the process that the government of Uganda has used to adopt and implement ICT policy. This study also considers the techniques which the government of Uganda has used to distribute ICTS in public locations such as government offices, schools, and hospitals. In particular, this study attempts to consider the political motivations for distribution. The Ugandan government's attempt to distribute this technology reflects strengths in the area of distribution of artefacts, particularly to rural areas. Information and communications technologies are an important part of the Ugandan economy. In addition, ICTs strengthen the ability of citizens to communicate with each other across regional and language borders through shared access points. Methodologically, this paper uses the case study method. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with politicians, policy makers, civil society activists, citizens, academics, medical personnel, regional government officials, and business people. This paper argues that politicians use ICTs as a component of a basket of goods and services that they can distribute to witnessing publics. This paper argues that ICT should be viewed as a type of infrastructure, and that as a public good, it can be used as a “club” good or “pork.” Although several authors discuss the potential of ICTs as democratizing, this paper documents that the Ugandan government has employed ICTs in oppressive ways, including for the surveillance of opposition leaders, and for social control.     

Uganda's decentralised primary education: musical chairs and inverted elite capture in School Management Committees

Decentralisation policies in Africa increasingly place responsibilities and resources for the provision of public services in the hands of public bodies at the lowest level, for example in School Management Committees (SMCs). This paper questions whether elite capture, which is considered a major reason for the ineffectiveness of the management of public services at a national level, also characterises SMCs. On the basis of field research in Uganda, it is argued that elite capture does not trickle down to the lowest levels in the management of public services. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Private tax collection—remnant of the past or a way forward? Evidence from rural Uganda

This article examines the growing role and impacts of private tax collection under fiscal decentralisation in Uganda. Based on evidence from six rural councils, three aspects of privatised tax collection are examined: (i) the impact on the nature of fiscal corruption; (ii) the problem of overzealous collection; and (iii) the challenge of assessing revenue potentials. While possibly meeting short‐term demands for local revenue growth and stability, the present form of private tax collection appears to transform the nature of fiscal corruption by reducing corruption at collection point and transferring the problem into the district administration. Moreover, while the charge of overzealousness permeates historical and theoretical work on privatised tax collection, the Ugandan experience casts doubt on its general validity. Instead, perverse distributional effects are the most likely cause of deteriorating state‐citizen relations in rural Uganda. Finally, the article considers the merit of the prediction of private collection as a preferred contractual choice for certain indirect taxes, suggesting that problems of asymmetric information in assessing the revenue yields of most rural markets are exaggerated. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trial Justice. The International Criminal Court and the Lord's Resistance Army, Tim Allen

With his book ‘Trial Justice’ Tim Allen enters oneof the hottest realms of recent debate in the field of transitionaljustice. His book is the first extensive study on the controversialinvolvement of the International Criminal Court in the conflict,one of Africa's longest conflicts, pertaining to the Lord'sResistance Army in northern Uganda. The stark contrast Allen depicts between two realities,     

Public sector versus private sector: the case of Uganda

The article reviews the case for privatization in Africa, with special reference to Uganda. It argues that enterprises supplying goods and services other than infrastructure are best left to the private sector, but considers the relative merits of local performance contracts to expatriate management contracts. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

Modes of influence: Participation in publicly administered development programmes

This article considers the way that farmers within a national agricultural advisory programme in Uganda were able to exert influence over that programme's policy and practice. Although the literature has tended to focus on engagement within formal programme structures as a major mode of participation, the analysis of the NAADS case reveals that farmers were able to exert an important influence over programme policy through their roles as political constituents. The brokerage role of supportive programme staff also worked to allow farmers' views to influence the programme, as did the collective weight of decisions commonly made by farmers, and to a lesser extent, the lobbying efforts of national NGOs. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Civil Society Intervention in the War-Torn Gulu District in Northern Uganda: Policy Implications for Social Service Delivery

Civil society in the African Gulu district of Uganda operates in an area of acute humanitarian crisis. The fragile nature of the environment due to prolonged civil war has rendered ineffective the implementation of public policies that should enable the population access to services. Thus, civil society intervention in this area is on urgent requirement as government and market have failed to deliver services to the people. The Gulu case is representative of other developing countries undergoing similar conflicts. Development partners need to recognize the role of civil society and advocate policies that enhance their effective participation in the development process. In order to more effectively tackle global development challenges, and in this era of globalization, this article argues that serious discussions should be held by all development partners to form a global governance system led by civil society organizations.     

Does social media matter in developing democracies? Examining its impact on citizen political participation and expression in Uganda

This study examines the impact of citizens' use of social media for political participation and expression in developing democracies of Africa in particular Uganda. Findings from studied N = 2,400 respondents, evidenced social media does matter in the developing democracy of Uganda as the second most preferred form of media (.95 ± 2.37). Findings also showed the use of social media for political participation in persuading others to vote for a given candidate or party was positively correlated r = .043*(p value at .05), n = 2,400, and p = .035 with R² = .002. Future studies should examine the use of social media platforms for policy implementation, civic engagement, and inclusiveness.