Development interventions and post conflict reconstruction in Northern Uganda

Abstract

This study examined the effects of development interventions and the post conflict reconstruction of Northern Uganda. It was undertaken in the districts of Gulu and Pader. This region has received a lot of development interventions and investments from the government of Uganda and non-state actors to support it recovery from the war and the ravages of the armed conflict. It recently transited from recovery to long-term sustainable development. Despite the comprehensive recovery and development plans for the region, it is characterized by persistent large inequalities in incomes, education, health and participation across gender, geography and life style. Their efforts seem not to have taken cognizance of the heterogeneity of the region, by pursuing a one-size-fits-all approach to interventions. That is why their investments seem not to have created the desired impact in the region. In addition, there are concerns about the level to which these interventions have been transformative and/or channels for closing the poverty gap between the region and the rest of the country. More specifically, peace building and reconciliation efforts seem to have been largely underfunded as compared to the other strategic objectives. It set out to analyse the different components under peace building and reconciliation initiatives in Northern Uganda; the contributions of the different parties in peace building and reconciliation in Northern Uganda, and the success and challenges of peace building and reconciliation efforts in that region. It adopted a case study design and employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches to gather the data. It used mixed methods for data collection and analysis. This study was guided by the human security, the human development theory and the neo realism theories. It studied a sample size of 440 respondents. It found rampant corruption. Some people thought that PRDP was facilitating and empowering the security of the regime rather than helping the subalterns who had been affected by the horrendous two decade old civil war. Further, some of them thought PRDP was a political favour from the government rather than their entitlement while others argued that the government was using the pretext of development interventions to garner donor funds for their diversion. As a strategic objective, peace building and reconciliation was given less attention. People accused the government of Uganda of failing to deliver adequate compensation as per the Juba Peace Agreement. This was a thorny issue for many communities. The PRDP also faced the ‘attitude problem’ by the people towards the government and vice versa. Many of these negativities ended up alienating the local people from these programmes and this resulted in the problem of lack of local ownership. The study concluded that while the development interventions and post conflict reconstruction has made positive contributions towards peace in the region, there was need for more funding to address the conflict drivers. In addition, there was need to fight corruption while increasing community sensitization and ideological work. Overall, these challenges explain why the development interventions in Northern Uganda did not yield the highly desired peace and reconciliation as expected vis-à-vis the value for the money which had been dispersed.