Petty and grand corruption and the conflict dynamics in Northern Uganda

This study explores the relationship between corruption and conflict in northern Uganda, using the perspectives of local business owners as an inroad. The purpose is to highlight how various types of corruption can be related to conflict dynamics in different ways, depending on the context. The article argues that in post-war northern Uganda grand corruption can be seen as related to the conflict dynamics, while petty corruption is generally not seen that way. At the centre of the conflict in northern Uganda lies a deep mutual mistrust between the population in the north and the central government. Therefore corruption in the public sector that occurs at the central level, in particular with regard to funds aimed at the north, tends to be associated with the conflict, whereas the various types of petty corruption encountered by local businesspersons in Gulu, the largest town in northern Uganda, are seen by these actors as normal or as ‘the way things are’.     

Biotechnology and bio-hegemony in Uganda: unraveling the social relations underpinning the promotion of genetically modified crops into new African markets

This paper aims to uncover the social relations used to promote genetically modified (GM) crops into new African markets. It unravels the network of corporate actors, development agencies, policy officials, and research scientists that support the unquestioned dominance of GM in Uganda, which houses one of the largest experimental program dedicated to agricultural biotechnology on the continent. Gramscian insights reveal how these constellations of power align to support biotechnology at the expense of other technological possibilities, and how this consensus maintains its position of dominance while remaining largely unquestioned and unchallenged.     

Community Participation in Local Governance – An Empirical Analysis of Urbanized Local Governments in the Philippines and Uganda

This article addresses community participation in local government, a controversial issue in the era of governance. Under the context of decentralisation reform in particular, active participation of the community in local governance has been expected, where as a range of critical arguments has been made on its concepts, ideas and feasibilities. Despite the significance of the issue, practices of community participation at the local level are academically under-examined, even in developed countries, let alone in developing countries. Given such situations, empirical observations from local governments of the Philippines and Uganda are introduced and comparatively analysed with in a specific analytical framework of participation. By doing so, the artide leads us to some keys to success for community participation schemes in the development context, which include the local leadership, functions of the central government and enhancing awareness of values of community participation both in the public and the local government.     

Developmentality: indirect governance in the World Bank–Uganda partnership

The instituted order of development is changing, creating new power mechanisms ordering the relationship between donor and recipient institutions. Donors’ focus on partnership, participation and ownership has radically transformed the orchestration of aid. While the formal order of this new aid architecture aimed to alter inherently asymmetrical donor–recipient relations by installing the recipient side with greater freedom and responsibility, this article – drawing on an analysis of the World Bank’s Poverty Reduction and Strategy Paper (PRSP) model and its partnership with Uganda – demonstrates how lopsided aid relations are being reproduced in profound ways. Analysed in terms of developmentality, the article shows how the donor aspires to make its policies those of the recipient as a means to govern at a distance, where promises of greater inclusion and freedom facilitate new governance mechanisms enabling the donor to retain control by framing the partnership and thus limiting the conditions under which the recipient exercises the freedom it has been granted.     

The politics of preventing violent extremism: the case of Uganda*

Multilateral development actors have recently embraced the ‘PVE’ (preventing violent extremism) agenda. This includes consideration of PVE measures in countries like Uganda, where interpretations of non-state violence are contested and where the government has a history of strategic rent-seeking behaviour regarding counter-terrorism assistance. This article assesses the threat of terrorism and violent extremism in Uganda. We argue against a strategic reorientation towards PVE among development actors. Current and emerging threats do not justify a departure from existing development priorities. Importantly, consideration of the political context pertaining to PVE in Uganda commends a cautious approach.     

Against Humanitarian Impunity: Rethinking Responsibility for Displacement and Disaster in Northern Uganda

Abstract

Given that humanitarian organizations can often be responsible for enabling, prolonging or intensifying violence and conflict through their interventions into war zones, it is important that these organizations, despite their presumed neutrality and beneficence, be held accountable for the deleterious consequences of their actions. The case of northern Uganda will be used to demonstrate how humanitarian agencies have made possible the government's counterinsurgency, including its policy of mass forced displacement and internment, which has led to a vast humanitarian crisis. The Ugandan government policy will be assessed as a war crime, making aid agencies accessories to this crime. This case study is used as an example to highlight that processes which demand the post-conflict accountability of those responsible for violence may be dramatically incomplete, and unjust, if they do not include the humanitarian agencies. In conclusion it will be suggested that if humanitarian organizations built popular accountability mechanisms into their daily operations this might prevent them from being complicit with egregious violence in the first place.     

Carbon markets and the new ‘Carbon Violence’: A Ugandan study

Abstract

This article examines the expansion of the global carbon economy, including a critical evaluation of its local level impacts. The authors describe the growing international support for carbon markets amongst governments, international institutions and financial investors as a response to human-induced climate change. By putting a price on carbon, proponents argue that carbon markets represent a win-win-win scenario; delivering benefits to local landholders where ecosystem services occur, as well as conferring benefits to investors and the environment. Plantation forestry represents a rapidly expanding sector in the broader carbon economy, with plantations representing one of a number of ‘flex crops’ able to be variously sold on the basis of their value as fuel, timber and carbon storage. To examine the impacts of expanding plantation forestry carbon markets, we take the case of Green Resources, reportedly the largest plantation forestry operator on the African continent. Drawing from in-depth research in 2012-2013 with affected communities in Uganda, the article examines the diverse historical and contemporary structural violence on which expansion of plantation forestry allegedly relies. Building upon earlier literature on violence (for example, Galtung [1990] and Watts [2001]), the authors introduce a new term ‘carbon violence’ to frame the distinctive forms of reported violence occurring alongside the burgeoning plantation forestry industry.     

论乌干达防治艾滋病社区支持模式的社会法律制度

乌干达曾经是艾滋病肆虐最严重的非洲国家,但乌干达政府自1986年开始实施了大规模的防治艾滋病行动,建立适应乌干达国情的防控艾滋病工作体系。乌干达防治艾滋病社区支持模式始于1987年的坎旺卡社区支持活动,并迅速在全国推广,形成了政府干预和指导的法律机制、医疗和物资支持制度、非歧视的社区关爱机制、宗教团体等非政府组织参与机制等基本制度。通过加强立法,完善对社区支持模式的法律规范、充分利用社会资源、加强社区服务的技术指导和对艾滋病孤儿的援助等措施使该项制度不断完善。     

Sources of local government extractive capacity: The role of trust and pre‐colonial legacy in the case of Uganda

Local government extractive capacity, as measured by the amount of graduated personal tax (GPT) collected relative to district wealth and population and, more qualitatively, as reflected in the nature of enforcement, varies considerably in Uganda. This article explores the reasons for this variation, first by investigating aggregate data at the cross‐district level, using data on taxation as well as survey data from the Afrobarometer, second, by a focussed comparison of two districts, one with high‐ and one with low‐extractive capacity. I find that generalised trust can explains some of the variation in extractive capacity across districts. The case studies trace the differences in trust and extractive capacity back to pre‐colonial rule; the better performing district having had centralised rule, a tradition of tax‐payment and a higher degree of social cohesion, while the poorer performing district had a more fragmented and less cohesive history of governance. The article thus points to the importance of understanding institutional path dependencies when assessing the feasibility of reform. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Karimojong from Uganda: Genetic characterization using an X-STR decaplex system

The Karimojong, an African group from the Karamoja region of Northeast Uganda, were genetically analysed using a decaplex system for X chromosome short tandem repeats (X-STRs). A total of 255 individuals (117 males and 138 females) were genotyped for the following loci: DXS8378, DXS9898, DXS7133, GATA31E08, GATA172D05, DXS7423, DXS6809, DXS7132, DXS9902 and DXS6789. Allele frequencies and parameters for forensic evaluation were calculated for each STR. No association was found between any pairs of loci studied. DXS6789 was the most polymorphic marker in this sample, followed by DXS6809, with gene diversities of 84.79% and 83.94%, respectively. The less discriminating locus observed was DXS7133, with a gene diversity of 39.79%. High overall values of power of discrimination were obtained for female (1 in 1.8 × 10¹⁰) and male samples (1 in 1.6 × 10⁶), as well as high power of exclusion in father/mother/daughter trios (99.9997%), in father daughter duos (99.9862%) and in half sisters with same father (99.0331%). These results confirm the potential of this 10-plex in parentage testing and in human identification.