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Mining and the African environment | Conservation Letters
Africa is on the verge of a mining boom. We review the environmental threats from African mining development, including habitat alteration, infrastructure expansion, human migration, bushmeat hunting, corruption, and weak governance. We illustrate these threats in Central Africa, which contains the vast Congo rainforest, and show that more than a quarter of 4,151 recorded mineral occurrences are concentrated in three regions of biological endemism—the Cameroon-Gabon Lowlands, Eastern DRC Lowlands, and Albertine Rift Mountains—and that most of these sites are currently unprotected. Threats are not uniform spatially, and much of the Congo Basin is devoid of mineral occurrences and may be spared from direct mining impacts. Some of the environmental impacts of African mining development could potentially be offset: mining set-asides could protect some wildlife habitats, whereas improving transportation networks could increase crop yields and spare land for conservation. Research and policy measures are needed to (1) understand the synergies between mining and other development activities, (2) improve environmental impact assessments, (3) devise mitigation and offsetting mechanisms, and (4) identify market choke points where lobbying can improve environmental practice. Without careful management, rapid mining expansion and its associated secondary effects will have severe impacts on African environments and biodiversity.
tags: congo mining conservation ecology environment development biodiversity analysis
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Alternative agency: Rwandan refugee warriors in exclusionary states | Conflict, Security & Development
The Democratic Forces of the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) have been framed as one of the key spoilers to peace in the African Great Lakes—challenging the stability of both Rwanda and the DRC, and accordingly becoming the target of several UN-supported operations to disarm them. This article examines how, despite nearly two decades in exile in the Congo, the Rwandan Hutu refugee warriors of the FDLR have managed to survive and remain an active and potent rebel group. Drawing on an analysis of the FDLR's changing and multi-faceted identity, and its deployment of this identity as ‘tactics’, I attempt to demonstrate how the FDLR have become citizen-like agents in the Congo. As such, the article challenges the common framing of the FDLR as a ‘foreign armed group’ by demonstrating that Rwandan Hutu militants in the eastern Congo are integrating into Congolese life in creative ways. Through an understanding of the varied strategies they have adopted to survive and integrate, one which acknowledges but does not solely focus on their acts of violence and human rights abuses, this article attempts to characterise the FDLR in a new light which may in turn lead to new approaches to reducing their belligerency.
tags: congo rwanda FDLR war rebels citizenship agency refugees analysis
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Digging Deeper: the Politics of ‘Conflict Minerals’ in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo | Global Policy
tags: congo conflict minerals war analysis
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The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region - African Security Review
In April 2012 a number of former rebels who had been integrated into the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) mutinied and formed the Movement of March 23, better know as the M23 rebel group. The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) has been mediating between Kinshasa and the M23 rebel group since 2012, without much success. In August 2013, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) issued a communiqué after its 33rd Summit of Heads of State and Government, stating that while it commends the ICGLR efforts, the talks have become protracted and a deadline needs to be set. The summit also called for an urgent joint ICGLR–SADC summit to address the crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In addition to this development, the chair of the ICGLR is to be rotated in December 2013, when President José Eduardo Dos Santos of Angola replaces President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. To date, the mediation has been headed by Uganda and this has raised concerns over the credibility of the ICGLR-led process, since Uganda has been accused of supporting the M23 rebellion in a report released in November 2012 by the United Nations Group of Experts on the DRC. One could question whether the Angolan leadership will bring anything new that could have an impact on the crisis. Many expect that the perceived neutrality that Dos Santos could bring to the negotiations may be a positive step towards reviving the talks that have all but stalled at this point. Another issue of interest is whether the joint ICGLR–SADC summit could instil new life into the mediation process.
tags: congo M23 war angola regional politics peace negotiations analysis
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Post-war Conflict and the Market for Protection: The Challenges to Congo's Hybrid Peace | International Peacekeeping
This article seeks to deepen the debate about violent war-to-peace transitions through a comparative case study between two rebel movements that became integrated in considerably different ways in post-war Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The political marketplace brought about by Congo's war-to-peace transition substantially influenced the bargaining power of non-state armed actors in the country's eastern borderlands. In such violent environments, non-state actors like militias, try to become recognized as alternative taxing authorities opposed to state governments, while they simultaneously collaborate with them to gain access to the dividends of international peacebuilding efforts. A decisive factor for the legitimacy of these violent agencies is their ability to transform from coercion- to capital-based organizations: militias, like state governments, need to actively organize local production while embedding their authority in rapidly transforming idioms of political power. This article argues that the ‘symbiotic’ relationships emerging between rebel rulers, capitalist brokers and state government in the context of protracted armed conflict have far-reaching consequences for the political order of post-war states, with varying results depending on the coercion- and capital-based rule of these emerging complexes in the world's violent peripheries.
tags: congo war peace hybridity non-state actors taxation political order analysis
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Power-sharing in Africa's war zones: how important is the local level? | The Journal of Modern African Studies
Research on power-sharing in Africa remains silent on the effects of national peace agreements on the sub-national level. Conversely, most armed conflicts originate and are fought in (or over) specific areas. A plausible hypothesis would be that for power-sharing to have the desired pacifying effect throughout the national territory, it needs to be extended to the local level. Based on fieldwork in six former hotspots in Liberia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) we find that there is hardly any local content, including local power-sharing, in national agreements. However, contrary to our hypothesis, neither local content (inclusion of actors or interest) nor local-power-sharing (either introducing a local power balance or monopoly) are indispensable to effectively bring about local peace, at least in the short-term. On the contrary, it might even endanger the peace process. The importance of the sub-national level is overestimated in some cases and romanticised in others. However, the history of spatial-political links, centralised policies, and the establishment of local balances or monopolies of power ultimately play an important role.
tags: congo burundi power-sharing local-level analysis
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Viols en RDC : quand les victimes doivent "payer pour obtenir justice" | Jeuneafrique.com -
Dans un rapport publié mercredi à Kinshasa, la Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme (FIDH) et des ONG locales partenaires dénoncent les difficultés qu'éprouvent les victimes des violences sexuelles à obtenir justice en RDC. Si des procès ont eu lieu ces dernières années, "aucune des décisions en matière de réparation" n'a été exécutée. Un "problème de moyens", se justifie Kinshasa.
tags: congo sexual violence rape justice report analysis
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Rwanda-RD Congo : Le retour de la paix renforce le commerce entre Gisenyi et Goma | Syfia
Le retour de la sécurité à l’est de la RDC fait la joie des vendeuses de fruits et légumes et des maçons rwandais. Ils traversent désormais sans inquiétude la frontière pour faire leurs affaires. Tout comme les Congolais qui viennent vendre chaussures, vêtements et petits outils à Gisenyi. La paix profite à tous.
tags: congo rwanda war peace trade daily life report
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Sud-Kivu : Payer pour avoir un emploi ou le garder | Syfia
Payer son futur employeur pour se faire embaucher, promettre une partie de son salaire pour garder son job : ces pratiques sont devenues très courantes au Sud-Kivu et ailleurs en RD Congo. Mais par peur de perdre son travail, très rares sont ceux qui en parlent.
tags: congo governance employment corruption report
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East African agriculture and climate change | International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
The second of three books in IFPRI's climate change in Africa series, East African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis examines the food security threats facing 10 of the countries that make up east and central Africa - Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda - and explores how climate change will increase the efforts needed to achieve sustainable food security throughout the region. East Africa's populations is expected to grow at least through mid-century. The region will also see income growth. Both will put increased pressure on the natural resources needed to produce food, and climate change makes the challenges greater. East Africa is already experiencing rising temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns, and increasing extreme events. Without attention to adaptation, the poor will suffer.
tags: congo rwanda burundi uganda agriculture climate change book analysis
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Learning “To Be” Kinyarwanda. Reflections on Fieldwork, Method and Data in the Study of Rwanda’s Transition | IOB Working Paper
The objective of this paper is the document the research process underlying a study on the Rwandan transition. An extensive documentation of the research process is needed (although rarely systematically undertaken) in order to understand or assess rigor (scientific and empirical) and reflexive activities deployed in the achievement of the study results. The underlying source of inspiration to do so are questions of validity that guide social science research as such. As a consequence, trustworthiness and phronesis are central concerns due to the particular epistemological intake and research strategy adopted. The paper describes the fieldwork activities, choice and use of research techniques, the reflective process guiding design and analysis, and provides an overview of the data. The paper documents five main research principles underlying and guiding the study: immersion, iteration, multi-sitedness, mixing methods and diachrony. Two main research techniques are discussed in detail: systematic observation activities and a life history approach. A detailed overview of the nature of the available data as well as a reflection on issues of epistemology and ontology concludes.
tags: rwanda research transition gacaca methodology report analysis
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Truly hostile environment | Letters | Times Higher Education
tags: rwanda research academics comment
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Must academics researching authoritarian regimes self-censor? | Features | Times Higher Education
In the case of Rwanda, it is wrong to argue that only academics working outside the country are capable of critical comment, says Phil Clark
tags: rwanda research academics authoritarianism analysis opinion
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Rwanda’s subtle forms of intimidation | Opinion | Times Higher Education
The government doesn’t need to resort to violence to ensure foreign scholars’ compliance, argues Erin Jessee
tags: rwanda research intimidation bureacracy surveillance opinion analysis
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▶ BBC World Service - The Forum, Rwanda: Africa’s Agricultural Success Story? | BBC
With a staggering one billion people undernourished, and a growing world population, how do we manage these essential resources for life to make sure there is enough to go round? Bridget Kendall is joined at the European Development Days in Brussels by Rwanda’s top agriculture official Ernest Ruzindaza, whose ministry has been credited with turning a food deficit into a surfeit in just five years.
tags: rwanda agriculture poverty debate
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What Rwanda Did Right | Departures
Nineteen years after the genocide, Rwanda is one of the least corrupt countries in Africa. How did it happen?
tags: rwanda corruption governance report
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Rwanda Freedom House Rankings Fall Another Notch | RwandaWire
Rwanda’s civil liberties rating declined from 5 to 6 due to numerous documented cases of unlawful detention, torture, and ill-treatment of civilians by military intelligence agents in secret locations.
tags: rwanda freedom freedom house rankings report
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Des nouvelles du Rwanda : comment j’ai été expulsé - Le nouvel Observateur
Imaginez un pays où il fait beau toute l’année, les oiseaux chantent, la végétation est abondante, les enfants rient de bon cœur, le magnifique pays des mille collines. Quelle belle carte postale ; il va maintenant falloir la retourner pour y lire quelques commentaires. La vérité est différente…
tags: rwanda research permits governance police expulsion report
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Marriages of Genocide | Brown Political Review
To a western audience, the idea of intermarriage between a perpetrator and a victim of genocide is unfathomable. This is especially true in the case of Rwanda, where approximately one million people were slaughtered in one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. But according to many Rwandans, marrying one’s attacker, or a relative of that attacker, is common. The only problem is that nobody seems to know any intermarried couples, including the organization tasked with reunifying a post-genocide Rwanda, the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC).
tags: rwanda reconciliation marriage report
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(Oral) History of Violence: Conflicting Narratives in Post-Genocide Rwanda | Bouka | Oral History Forum d'histoire orale
Following the 1994 genocide, Rwanda deployed a series of comprehensive transitional justice projects seeking to hold criminally accountable all who participated in the violence. An investigation of former genocide detainees’ journeys through the post-conflict justice system reveals divergences between how they choose to remember and relate the violence surrounding the 1994 genocide in relation to the current government’s official narrative. While incongruities between the official narrative and the memories of ordinary Rwandans have been thoroughly documented in recent research, this article focuses on the form and content of released prisoners’ discourses and offers an investigative window into how those who became objects, subjects, and products of the post-conflict justice system understand concepts of justice, criminal accountability and reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda. My research took place in the fault lines of the authorized discourse on justice in Rwanda and like many other social scientists investigating post-conflict Rwanda, I relied on oral histories. As this article will demonstrate, investigating the narratives of released prisoners of the genocide and pinning them against the official narrative exposes how they interpret the causes and consequences of the episode of violence they lived through and offers an interesting vantage point from which to conceptualize and analyze criminality and victimhood during episodes of mass violence.
tags: rwanda violence narratives histories reconciliation analysis
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With the aim of reducing women’s greater unpaid care work than men’s and increasing women’s paid employment, this paper examines the extent to which World Bank investments address unpaid care work. The paper conducts an in-depth gender analysis of 36 Wo
With the aim of reducing women’s greater unpaid care work than men’s and increasing women’s paid employment, this paper examines the extent to which World Bank investments address unpaid care work. The paper conducts an in-depth gender analysis of 36 World Bank employment-related projects in Malawi, Mali, Niger, and Rwanda. It concludes that the vast majority (92 per cent) of reviewed projects fail to account for unpaid care work. Exceptionally, Malawi’s Shire River Basin Management Program and Niger’s Community Action Program target women’s needs as caretakers. But most reviewed projects do not address unpaid care work. Doing so would improve economic and human development and reduce gender inequality.
tags: rwanda World Bank care gender work analysis
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Large-Scale Land Deals and Local Livelihoods in Rwanda: The Bitter Fruit of a New Agrarian Model | African Studies Review
In a context of globalization and liberalization, Africa is increasingly confronted with the commercialization of its space. Various large-scale actors, including international private investors, investor states, and local entrepreneurs, are constantly seeking to expand their land holdings for the production of food crops or biofuels. This article presents two Rwandan case studies and analyzes how large-scale land acquisition by foreign and local elite players affects local livelihoods. It identifies broader agrarian and social changes taking place in Rwanda and Africa and provides suggestions as to how the tables might be turned in order to protect local livelihoods in the further evolution of Rwanda’s agriculture.
tags: rwanda land livelihoods agrarian change analysis
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PUBLIC HOLIDAYS IN POSTINDEPENDENCE RWANDA: A HISTORICAL READING OF SOME SPEECHES | JACPS
Since independence, Rwandan governments have made it a culture to commemorate some events considered as important. These include the dates of 28 January in remembrance of the Gitarama proclamation of the Republic and abolition of Monarchy on 28 January 1961; 25 September to commemorate the victory of Party of Movement of Emancipation of Hutu (PARMEHUTU) victory of legislative elections, and 1 July to celebrate the Rwandan independence that took place on 1 July 1962. Other important dates include the 1st of January of each year when the Head of State used to address the nation and the 5th of July to commemorate the accession to power of President Juvénal Habyarimana on 5 July 1973.
tags: rwanda politics history speeches memory analysis
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Rwanda 2010: A Dramatic Change in Reproductive Behavior | RoR
In Rwanda, between 2005 and 2010, there have been radical declines in the desired number of children, actual fertility, and child mortality along with a large increase in contraceptive prevalence. This study reviews trends in some of these measures. Multivariate analyses evaluate the relative importance for the desired number of children of years of schooling, wealth, urban residence, media exposure, child mortality, and attitudes toward gender equality. Variations in reproductive preferences, the total fertility rate, and unmet need for family planning are mapped for the 30 districts of Rwanda. The explanations for the rapid changes in reproductive attitudes and behavior are clearly related to the concerns of the country, the rapid rate of population growth, and its implications for economic development and reproductive health.
tags: rwanda fertility demography population growth development analysis
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Tuning in to the RTLM: Tracking the Evolution of Language Alongside the Rwandan Genocide Using Social Identity Theory | JLSP
Transcripts from radio broadcasts that aired in pre-, early-, and late-genocide Rwanda were content analyzed from a social identity theory perspective to examine whether language use was consistent with theoretical predictions. The data yielded by these analyses (N = 59) are noteworthy because the broadcasters on this station were eventually charged with war crimes for inciting and endorsing the violence between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. The results from this study found that the transcripts contained language in support of theory such that the Tutsi out-group was increasingly dehumanized as the conflict escalated, the Tutsi were blamed for their fate—while the Hutu were presented as victims of the violence, and an overt prejudice that was initially directed at Tutsi rebel group grew to include all Tutsi people near the end of this conflict. These data provide compelling support for the communication processes that arise within intergroup conflict situations and support the continued application of social identity theory to real-world situations.
tags: rwanda genocide radio RTLM ideology communication language analysis
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Challenges to Achieving Sustainable Sanitation in Informal Settlements of Kigali, Rwanda | Int J. Environ. Res. Public Health
Like most cities in developing countries, Kigali is experiencing rapid urbanisation leading to an increase in the urban population and rapid growth in the size and number of informal settlements. More than 60% of the city’s population resides in these settlements, where they experience inadequate and poor quality urban services including sanitation. This article discusses the issues and constraints related to the provision of sustainable sanitation in the informal settlements in Kigali. Two informal settlements (Gatsata and Kimisagara) were selected for the study, which used a mixed method approach for data collection. The research found that residents experienced multiple problems because of poor sanitation and that the main barrier to improved sanitation was cost. Findings from this study can be used by the city authorities in the planning of effective sanitation intervention strategies for communities in informal settlements.
tags: rwanda sanitation health urbanisation public services policy analysis
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Negotiated Peace, Denied Justice? The Case of West Nile (Northern Uganda) | Africa Spectrum
“Reconciliation” and “justice” are key concepts used by practitioners as well as authors of conflict-management and peacebuilding textbooks. While it is often recognized that there may be contradictions between the implementation of justice and truth-telling, on the one hand, and an end to organized violence, on the other, the ideal of a seamless fusion of these diverse goals is widely upheld by, among other things, reference to the rather utopian concept of “positive peace” (Galtung). One difficulty arises from the fact that discourses usually focus on (post-)conflict settings that resemble a victory of one conflict party, whereas peace settlements are often negotiated in a context more similar to a military or political stalemate – a more ambiguous and complicated scenario. This essay discusses these problems against the background of an empirical case study of the peace accord between the government and the rebels in the West Nile region in north-western Uganda.
tags: uganda peace justice peace agreement settlements conflict West Nile Region analysis
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Parents’ Education and Child Schooling Outcome: Evidence from Uganda | Journal of Politics and Law
This paper presents an analysis of the determinants of school enrolment and attainment rates in Uganda from a gender perspective. We used the DHS 2006 data set and employed maximum likelihood binary and ordered probit models in our estimation. Whereas improvements in parents’ education promote the schooling outcome of both boys and girls, it is not without inclination. Fathers’ education significantly favors boys’ schooling and mothers’ education significantly favors girls’ schooling. This suggests that there are differences in parents’ preferences for schooling of children. We also find that the higher the parents’ education (secondary and postsecondary levels) the more favorable are the child’s schooling outcomes. For more favorable child schooling outcomes for future generations, government should strengthen policies aimed at educating boys and girls beyond secondary level. The government universal secondary education program is a good start and needs to be strengthened.
tags: uganda school schooling education parents education analysis
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The Effects of Tax Incentives on Firm Performance: Evidence from Uganda | Journal of Politics and Law
This paper attempts to analyse the effects of tax incentives on the performance of Ugandan manufacturing firms in terms of gross sales and value added employing panel data estimation techniques. The study findings show that firms with tax incentives perform better in terms of gross sales and value added than their counterparts. The education level of managers of firms, firm-size, and age of the firm have positive impact on firm performance. The major policy implication of the study findings indicates that Government needs to streamline the provision of tax incentives for better firm performance. Access to quality and technical education and skills development is necessary in order to have qualified managers with high level of management skills to utilize the available tax incentives so as to improve firm performance.
tags: uganda firms business tax taxation governance analysis
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Homosexuality, Sex Work, and HIV/AIDS in Displacement and Post-Conflict Settings: The Case of Refugees in Uganda | International Peacekeeping
his article aims to disrupt the silence, invisibility and erasures of non-heteronormative sexual orientations or gender identities, and of sex work, in HIV/AIDS responses within displacement and post-conflict settings in Africa. Informed by Gayle Rubin's sexual hierarchy theoretical framework, It explores the role of discrimination and violation of the rights of sex workers and of gender and sexual minorities in driving the HIV/AIDS epidemic during displacement. Specific case materials focus on ethnographic research conducted in urban and rural Uganda. Recommendations for policy, practice and programmes are outlined.
tags: uganda HIV AIDS sex work homosexuality refugees analysis
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“I am From Busia!”: Everyday Trading and Health Service Provision at the Kenya–Uganda Border as Place-Making Activities | Journal of Borderlands Studies - Volume 28, Issue 3
Critical researchers in anthropology, politics, and history have profited from the spatial turn, or the idea that spaces produced through practices and perceptions influence observable social action, in showing how people at borders derive specific economic and social benefits from their unique location. This is especially relevant in African border contexts where state presence is often modified or resisted by local agendas. However, less work examines how cross-border activities, locally-held perceptions, and geographic location interact to generate different versions of what it means to “be at” a border for border-crossers and residents themselves. This paper, in responding to calls for interdisciplinary and multiperspectival approaches to border studies, argues that theorizing border towns as dynamic “places” clarifies how individuals impact and construct different meanings at and across borders. It empirically develops this idea by examining two spheres of everyday activity occurring at the Kenya-Uganda border: cross-border trade and health service provision.
tags: uganda kenya border borderlands space place everyday health analysis
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Who Owns the Land? Perspectives from Rural Ugandans and Implications for Large-Scale Land Acquisitions | Feminist Economics -
Rapidly growing demand for agricultural land is putting pressure on property-rights systems, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where customary tenure systems have provided secure land access. Rapid and large-scale demands from outsiders are challenging patterns of gradual, endogenous change toward formalization. Little attention has focused on the gender dimensions of this transformation. However this contribution, based on a 2008–09 study of land tenure in Uganda, analyzes how different definitions of land ownership – including household reports, existence of ownership documents, and rights over the land – provide very different indications of the gendered patterns of land ownership and rights. While many households report husbands and wives as joint owners of the land, women are less likely to be listed on ownership documents, and have fewer rights. A simplistic focus on “title” to land misses much of the reality regarding land tenure and could have an adverse impact on women's land rights.
tags: uganda land tenure ownership rights gender analysis
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Decentralisation and Development: Can Uganda now pass the test of being a role model? | Ssonko | Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance
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Recentralization of local government chief administrative officers appointments in Uganda: Implications for downward accountability | Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance
The Uganda Constitution of 1995 spelt out the principle of decentralization by devolution. Accordingly, from 1995 to 2005, district local governments had a dejure mandate to hire and fire all categories of civil servants through their respective district service commissions (DSCs). Following the Constitutional amendment in September 2005, the right to hire and fire district chief administrative officers (CAOs) reverted to central government. Critics of recentralization of CAO appointments contend that the shift in the policy and legislation for managing CAOs runs contrary to the principles of decentralization by devolution. This paper argues that recentralization of CAOs has confused reporting, reduced the autonomy of sub-national governments in civil service management, undermined accountability of CAOs to elected councils, and shifted the loyalty of CAOs from local governments with and for which they work to central government that appoints and deploys them. To deepen accountability in local governments, the paper advocates for decentralization of CAO appointments, but for participation of central government in recruitment of CAOs within the confines of a separate personnel system. It further calls for a rethinking of the current call by the 9th Parliament to recentralize human resource in health in local governments owing to accountability challenges of managing the civil service in sub-national governments under an integrated personnel system.
tags: uganda government accountability governance decentralization analysis
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Indigenous knowledge of seasonal weather forecasting: A case study in six regions of Uganda | Earth & Environmental Sciences
Indigenous knowledge of seasonal weather forecasting could be useful in decision making at village level to best exploit the seasonal distribution of rainfall in order to increase or stabilize crop yields. We examined existing indigenous knowledge by interviewing 192 households in six regions of Uganda. Twenty one distinctive indicators were mentioned by local communities for forecasting the start of the dry season, but only few of these indicators were more consistently and frequently used in the different districts. These included the appearance of bush crickets (Ruspolia baileyi Otte), winds blowing from the east to the west, the appearance and movement of migratory birds such as cattle egrets (Bubulcus ibis Linnaeus), and calling by the Bateleur eagle (Terathopius ecaudatus Lesson). For prediction of the start of the rainy season, 22 indicators were mentioned and these included winds blowing from the west to the east, cuckoo birds (Cuculiformes: Cuculidae) start to call, and winged African termite (Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki) swarms leave their nests. Predictors of rain in the following days included presence of red clouds in the morning. Together with the meteorological forecasts, traditional indicators could be very useful in rain forecasting and improving the timing of agricultural activities.
tags: uganda indigenous knowledge agriculture weather rain analysis
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Beyond Educational Voyeurism: An Analysis of a Ugandan-North American Teacher Partnership Program | African Journal of Teacher Education
This paper examines open responses and journal entries generated by participants in a Ugandan – North American international teacher partnership program. Teachers comments are analyzed for factors addressing the successful negotiation of both teaching and relationship making across the cultural, pedagogical and political divides that separate them. In the midst of the international teacher partnership program, North American participants raised pedagogical concerns regarding the teacher-centered pedagogy and student passivity as after effects of Uganda’s colonial education system.
tags: uganda education teacher pedagogy US partnership analysis
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British Colonialism and the Creation of Acholi Ethnic Identity in Uganda, 1894 to 1962 | The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History -
This article discusses the role of British colonialism in the rise and development of Acholi ethnic identity in Uganda. The authors used oral tradition and archival sources to determine when and how the Acholi ethnicity evolved. They conducted interviews with key informants including chiefs, elders and opinion leaders. Their main argument is that the Acholi as a distinct and collective identity are a British creation. Before British colonialism, the Acholi were a divided people living under different chiefdoms numbering up to about sixty. The name ‘Acholi’ was non-existent. The people who became Acholi were known by the names of their respective chiefdoms. The British abolished those chiefdoms and in their place created a single ethnic identity called Acholi.
tags: uganda identity colonialism ethnicity commonwealth history analysis
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An Institutional Analysis of Commodity Chain Evolution: A Case Study of Sawn Wood in Uganda | BioOne Online Journals
Efforts to address wood scarcity have ignored the forestry value chain and extant literature treats commodity chains as static constructs. Using the adaptive cycle framework, the evolution of the sawn wood commodity chain in Uganda was analysed to examine how policy and governance, physical, and socioeconomic factors interacted to shape its profile over time. Results show that the chain has evolved through one adaptive cycle and is currently undergoing reorganisation. The policy and governance environment had the greatest influence but inadequate coherence with the socioeconomic and physical environments resulted in a system vulnerable to exogenous disturbances. The examination of commodity chains as complex adaptive systems provides beneficial insights to supplement traditional cross-sectional studies focussing on structure, functioning and distribution equity. There is a need for adaptive institutions with focus on development of a cogent strategy for proper coordination in the sawn wood production and distribution system.
tags: uganda commodity chain wood institutions analysis
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The Gender Impact of Microfinance: The Case of Wekembe in Uganda | CEB Working Paper
Microfinance industry has grown massively in the past decades. Even if it is commonly considered as an important development tool, the evidence of the socio-economic impact of microfinance is mixed, regardless of what methodology has been applied. The purpose of this study is to assess the socio-economic impact of microfinance on the clients of a microfinance program in Uganda, named Wekembe. To do so, we have conducted a survey on 294 Wekembe’s clients and we have used the survey results to build a dataset, which by means of different methodologies – controlling also for selection bias by means of a generalized propensity score (GPS) matching technique - allows us to analyse the impact of microfinance on Wekembe clients’ savings and women clients’ empowerment.
tags: uganda microfinance gender empowerment savings analysis
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When is your tea time? Making sense of time in organizations | Organization & Management Theory
Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography, we investigate how actors make sense of time when they encounter different temporal perspectives. Our empirical context is Fairtrade-certified tea production in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. We present how Fairtrade influences the patterns and interpretations of time in African tea growing communities through teaching time and controlling time. We find that actors make sense of temporal asymmetries by creating meanings to accommodate multiple perspectives of time: balancing present and future, synthesizing a spiral view of development, decoupling labels from practices, and negotiating for flexibility. The study contributes an understanding of giving and making sense of time to the research on time and sensemaking in organizations.
tags: uganda time meaning sensemaking analysis organizations
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Researching entrepreneurship in low-income settlements: the strengths and challenges of participatory methods | Environment & Urbanization
Despite an increased focus on entrepreneurship as a means of promoting development, there has been limited discussion of the conceptual and methodological issues related to researching entrepreneurship in low-income countries. Drawing on experiences from Uganda, this paper presents a study of entrepreneurship conducted in a low-income settlement, which combined participatory quantitative and qualitative approaches, highlighting the strengths and challenges of using participatory methods. The paper demonstrates how drawing on a range of participatory methods can contribute to creating more engaging research relationships and generate a deeper and more contextualized understanding of entrepreneurship.
tags: uganda research participatory methods entrepeneurship settlements methodology analysis
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Scrambling for the promised land: land acquisitions and the politics of representation in post-war Acholi, northern Uganda | African Identities
In the wake of return to relative peace in Acholi region, northern Uganda, from 2006, land matters have taken centre stage. After having been displaced into camps for many years, people have started to go back home. Their return is complicated by many factors, including above all, land disputes. While the Ugandan constitution and land legislation protects customary tenure, the social and economic institutions that uphold this tenure regime have been severely weakened as a result of war and displacement. The combination of demographic changes following large-scale displacement and gradual return; social and economic conflicts emanating from biting poverty for most and accumulation by a few; uncertain territorial demarcations by way of changing and contested statutory and communal boundaries in the context of weak and subverted regulatory institutions, together deepen conflicts over resources. This article analyses these issues by examining a case of land acquisition in Amuru: a bid by the Madhvani business group to access huge tracts of land in western Acholi for purposes of growing sugar cane, and the heated debates and protests this case has generated, as played out by political representation in different arenas such as the media, courts and representative assemblies.
tags: uganda acholi land displacement Madhivani business representation analysis
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Science teacher shortage and the moonlighting culture: The pathology of the teacher labour market in Uganda | International Journal of Educational Development
The Ugandan Government promotes the rapid expansion of secondary education and requires an emphasis on mathematics and science subjects at that level, but has a “market” approach to the recruitment of teachers. This study uses both national and local evidence to demonstrate that, not only are the teachers of these subjects too few for the policies to be effective, but many of them are employed in more than one school, and some in other work. This “moonlighting” trend, which contributes to problems of poor service, is seen as part of a questionable tendency to commercialise teaching. Policy changes and practical steps are suggested in order to regulate and reduce moonlighting.
tags: uganda educational policy teachers analysis
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Food Standards, Certification, and Poverty among Coffee Farmers in Uganda | GlobalFood
Private standards are gaining in importance in global markets for high-value foods. We analyze and compare impacts of three sustainability oriented standards – Fairtrade, Organic, and UTZ – on the livelihoods of smallholder coffee farmers in Uganda. Using survey data and propensity score matching with multiple treatments, we find that Fairtrade certification increases household living standards by 30% and significantly reduces the prevalence and depth of poverty. For the other two certification schemes, no significant impacts are found. Institutional factors that may explain differential impacts are discussed. Overly general statements about the effects of standards on smallholder livelihoods may be misleading.
tags: uganda coffee smallholder famers poverty development fairtrade analysis
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Men at Risk; a Qualitative Study on HIV Risk, Gender Identity and Violence among Men Who Have Sex with Men Who Report High Risk Behavior in Kampala, Uganda | Plos One
In Uganda, men who have sex with men (MSM) are at high risk for HIV. Between May 2008 and February 2009 in Kampala, Uganda, we used respondent driven sampling (RDS) to recruit 295 MSM≥18 years who reported having had sex with another man in the preceding three months. The parent study conducted HIV and STI testing and collected demographic and HIV-related behavioral data through audio computer-assisted self-administered interviews. We conducted a nested qualitative sub-study with 16 men purposively sampled from among the survey participants based on responses to behavioral variables indicating higher risk for HIV infection. Sub-study participants were interviewed face-to-face. Domains of inquiry included sexual orientation, gender identity, condom use, stigma, discrimination, violence and health seeking behavior. Emergent themes included a description of sexual orientation/gender identity categories. All groups of men described conflicting feelings related to their sexual orientation and contextual issues that do not accept same-sex identities or behaviors and non-normative gender presentation. The emerging domains for facilitating condom use included: lack of trust in partner and fear of HIV infection. We discuss themes in the context of social and policy issues surrounding homosexuality and HIV prevention in Uganda that directly affect men's lives, risk and health-promoting behaviors.
tags: uganda hiv gender identity health sexual behaviour analysis
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The abstinence campaign and the construction of the Balokole identity in the Ugandan Pentecostal movement | Canadian Journal of African Studies
Based on fieldwork data collected since 2005 in Uganda, the paper explores the connections between young Pentecostals' involvement in HIV prevention programs, with a particular attention to the “abstinence campaign”, and the process of identity construction within the movement itself. I show how the rise of the AIDS epidemic contributed in a decisive way to shaping the construction of meaning, and thus the action, of the Balokole (“the Savedees”) movement in Uganda. Theoretically, the article aims at contributing to fill the gap in the analysis of social movements in Africa, especially addressing the specificity of believers' participation in church activities and in evangelical faith-based organizations (FBOs) by exemplifying how the collective identity of the born-again and their mobilization to fight AIDS are reciprocally related. The identity/participation connection clarifies how the feeling of belonging to a strongly connected and partially closed group, that of the “saved” Christians, is pivotal in pushing the Balokole to become active.
tags: uganda HIV balokole health religion social movements analysis
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Measuring the Benefits of Smallholder Farmer Membership in Producer-Controlled Vertical Value Chains: Survey Findings From a Development Project in East Africa | Poverty & Public Policy
The question addressed in this article is what precisely are the benefits that small-scale farmers in the developing world receive from being members of producer-controlled vertical value chains? A baseline comparative survey was conducted of members and non-members of four vertically coordinated dairy cooperatives, three in Kenya and one in Uganda (N = 3,986), which are part of a larger five-year longitudinal cooperative study. The study measures both objective income gains and subjective satisfaction gains from cooperative membership. Cooperative members have a small but statistically significant advantage over non-members in income from dairy, but other incentives for membership are based on selective incentives (i.e., provision of non-income services to members) and social capital (i.e., trust that the cooperative will purchase their milk and pay them a fair price). These findings suggest that the motivations for cooperative membership in developing countries are not dissimilar from motivations of cooperative members in more developed countries. This coupled with similar organizational design issues suggests that greater attention should be paid to larger-scale vertically coordinated collective action models in development theory and research.
tags: uganda cooperatives value chaines analysis
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Out Of Garamba, into Uganda. Poaching and trade of ivory in Garamba National Park and LRA-affected areas in Congo | IOB Policy Brief
Ivory poaching and trading in central and eastern Africa has recently received a lot of attention. On the one hand, there have been a number of analyses highlighted how ‘tusks fund terror’ for the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). On the other hand, there have been a wide range of news reports on the confiscation of large consignments of ivory, in Entebbe airport, but particularly in Mombasa, all of which highlighting the intensified trade in ivory and the important (transit) role of Uganda. This analysis wants to better document both of these points, by linking them together: it wants to explain the poaching dynamics in Garamba National Park (GNP) in the DRC, where the LRA is active. It particularly wants to show how the LRA is a relatively minor actor in poaching – it can by far not explain the strong intensification of elephant poaching in the park: whereas from 2007 to 2012, 7 to 8 elephants were killed in the park, in the first 10 months of 2012 alone, a staggering 50 elephants were killed. Related with this, the analysis wants to show how much of the ivory passing through Uganda, or confiscated in Mombasa, comes from GNP. Therefore, while calls from the UN Security Council to investigate the role of the LRA in ivory poaching are useful in bringing attention to the poaching problem, the strict attention to the LRA is not particularly helpful, and will only have a limited impact.
tags: uganda congo poaching trade national parks LRA policy analysis