Following the Oil Road A case study assessing the vulnerability of women under the impact of development-induced migration in Western Uganda
M.Sc Thesis International Development Studies
Catharina Nickel Wageningen University Student number 851018-599-080 July 2016
Following the Oil Road A case study assessing the vulnerability of women under the impact of development-induced migration in Western Uganda
Catharina Nickel July 2016
M.Sc. Thesis International Development Studies Communication, Philosophy and Technology Group
WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Han van Dijk Examiner: Dr. Gemma van der Haar
Copyright 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author.
Abstract
The objective of this M.Sc. thesis is to assess the vulnerability of women under the impact of the development-induced migration that is currently taking place in the Lake Albert basin in Western Uganda. It provides a “snapshot” of the current situation in Hoima and Buliisa and intends to support the wider documentation of the social implications connected to the envisioned oil drilling activities in Western Uganda. This information will better enable scientists and practitioners to reconstruct the advent of certain social structures, even at a later stage in the process.
The research presented builds on well-known studies regarding the relationship between natural resources and conflict. Moreover, it uses common approaches in the field of disaster risk reduction theory to determine the vulnerability of households and individuals. Designed as an exploratory case study, theories are used as a starting point and followed by closer examination of real-life cases, enabling the development of a deeper understanding. The thesis summarizes the findings of field research conducted from October to December 2015 in Hoima, Buliisa and Kampala. Following a qualitative multi-method approach, individual interviews and focus group discussions were carried out in each of the three locations, and additional in-depth research into literature was completed.
Table of Contents Section 1 – Background, Methods and Conceptual Tools ...... 1 1 Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Problem Description ...... 3 1.2 Research Question ...... 6 1.2.1 Sub-Research Questions ...... 6 2 Theoretical Background ...... 8 2.1 Oil and Conflict ...... 8 2.2 Development-Induced Migration ...... 10 2.3 The Double-Structured Nature of Vulnerability ...... 12 2.3.1 The External Side of Vulnerability ...... 14 2.3.2 The Internal Side of Vulnerability ...... 15 2.4 The Vulnerability of Women ...... 17 2.5 The Meaning of Land ...... 19 2.6 Stakeholders ...... 23 3.1 The Exploratory Character of the Study ...... 26 3.2 Research Set Up ...... 27 3.2.1 In-depth Literature Review ...... 28 3.2.2 Focus Group Discussions ...... 29 3.2.3 Individual Interviews ...... 30 3.3 Sampling Method for Discussions and Interviews ...... 31 3.3.1 Sampling Method for Focus Group Discussions ...... 32 3.3.2 Sampling Method for Individual Interviews ...... 33 3.4 Data Analysis ...... 34 3.4.1 Qualitative Coding ...... 34 3.4.2 Calculation of the Level of Saturation ...... 35 Section 2 – Findings and Analysis ...... 38 4 Literature Review: From the General to the Specific ...... 38 4.1 Regional focus: Western Uganda ...... 38 4.2 Context: The Abundance of Oil and the Means of Reducing Poverty ...... 42 4.3 “Governing the resources well” ...... 44 4.4 Economic Perspectives ...... 50 4.5 Social Constraints: Information and Participation as Determinants of Vulnerability ...... 53
4.6 Environmental Determinants of Vulnerability ...... 57 4.7 Land Issues ...... 58 4.8 Forced Migration ...... 61 4.9 The role of women ...... 64 5 Findings of the field research ...... 67 5.1 Individual Interviews & Focus Group Discussions with the Affected Women...... 68 5.1.1 “The oil” is to blame ...... 73 5.2 Focus Group Discussions ...... 75 5.2.1 Focus group discussion in Buliisa ...... 76 5.2.2 Focus group discussions in Nyakasenene and Kabaale Parish (province Hoima) ...... 79 5.3 Interviews with non-governmental actors ...... 82 5.3.1 “This is not only about governance, this is about morals.” ...... 84 5.4 Interviews with governmental actors ...... 86 5.4.1 “Our hands are tied.” ...... 88 6 Discussion and conclusions ...... 90 References ...... 100 Appendix A ...... 112 Appendix B ...... 114 Appendix C ...... 117 Appendix D ...... 124
List of figures
Fig. 1, Overview of the oil find in the Albertine Graben, ...... 3 Fig. 2, Model for the analysis of vulnerability ...... 13 Fig. 3, Rainfall patterns in Uganda ...... 39 Fig. 4, Proportion of fish catch by water body ...... 42
List of tables
Table 1, Overview of stakeholders and affected people ...... 24 Table 2, Production statistics of selected crops in Uganda ...... 40
Acknowledgements
The here presented thesis was written in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Science in International Development Studies at Wageningen University. I want to express my gratitude to my thesis supervisor Han van Dijk for his guidance and especially for giving me the opportunity to return to Uganda for a field research.
The data that is presented and analyzed in this thesis was gathered during a fieldwork in Uganda between October and December 2015. When I left for the fieldtrip, I was full of optimism. Nevertheless, my expectations were even surpassed. Working in a team with Specioza Twinamasiko, Janet Ninsiima and Herbert Byaruhanga was the best thing that could have happened to me and the experiences that I gained while traveling up and down the so-called Oil Road, are beyond comparison. I would like to thank Dr. Viola Nilah Nyakato and Dr. Charles Muchunguzi for introducing me to the Institute of Interdisciplinary Training and Research at Mbarara University of Science and Technology and for eventually making this all possible.
There were turbulent times, too and once again, I had to realize how fortunate I am to be surrounded by very special people. First and foremost, I would like to extend my gratitude to my family, Bernd, Susanne and Carsten. Furthermore, a huge thank-you goes out to Alice Erwin & Matze Hagen, Anna Schute & Döwi, my Mzungu fellow Claudia Buning, Yvonne Herzig & Jan Reich, Tanja & Felix Backherms and Jonas Hamann, who have simply always been there for me. My colleagues at the UN in Bonn, Aileen Orate, Yvonne Walz, Fee Dreikhausen and Karen Hattenbach, probably do not even know how much they contributed to this whole project with either forcing me into nightshifts, bearing with me in lengthy afternoon hours, or for being great team players.
Gathering data can be tiresome, but I was lucky to meet many people who made it a pleasure. Hence, I am incredibly grateful for all the information shared by our interview partners. I am impressed by the wisdom and the courage of the representatives of
AFIEGO, NAPE, BIRUDO, Global Rights Alert, NAVODA the Refugee Law Project and Transparency International, to mention but a few.
Above all, however, I want to express my sincere gratitude and utmost respect to the women of Hoima and Buliisa who shared their stories with us. It is to them that I dedicate this work.
Bonn July 2016
Section 1 – Background, Methods and Conceptual Tools
1 Introduction After visiting it during his travels through Africa, Winston Churchill famously called Uganda “the Pearl of Africa”. Praising the country “for magnificence, for variety and color, for profusion of brilliant life – plant, bird, insect, reptile, beast – for the vast scale” (Hammerle et al., 2010, not paginated) and also for its outstanding people. Churchill left no doubt in his readers’ minds that Uganda must be a place of outstanding beauty and uniqueness. However, following Churchill’s famous words in 1908, Uganda experienced harsh periods of war, civil conflict and uncertainty on all levels. Fortunately it has also witnessed times of relative tranquility and positive prospects for the future.
Over the last three decades, Uganda has shifted from being a major recipient of humanitarian aid to becoming a country that has “registered one of the most impressive economic turnarounds of recent decades” (Selassie 2008, p. 3). Nevertheless, Uganda still scores low in terms of human development by international comparison, ranking number 164 out of 187 countries in total in the Human Development Index (UNDP 2014). The infant mortality rate is high, as is the number of illiterate adults (cf. ibid.), and human rights groups criticize Ugandan authorities for their failure to uphold human rights (cf. Amnesty International 2015; Human Rights Watch 2015a). Despite his political successes, the Ugandan president has recently been criticized for remaining in power by means of democratically weak elections, repressing the political opposition and the excessive use of police violence against citizens (Human Rights Watch 2015b).
According to Jimmy D. Mugerwa of Tullow Oil, a UK-based oil and gas exploration and production company, the situation in Uganda could be changed for good (cf. Tullow Oil plc, 2015) because approximately 1.7 billion barrels of oil have been discovered in an area covering 2,554 square kilometers in the Lake Albert basin. Mugerwa acknowledges some challenges, such as transporting the oil from the country’s interior to the shore of the Indian Ocean and the impact of drilling for oil in an area key to preserving biodiversity in Africa. He explains that “the expenditure will be the size of the GDP of the country”, (USD 26.31 million according to the World
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Bank, 2014).” 82 per cent of that revenue will come to Uganda as a country”, if only the country manages to “look after these resources well” (Tullow Oil plc, 2015).
Although the long-term consequences of the discovery of oil – both positive and negative – are not yet foreseeable in the Ugandan context, it has already had an impact on certain parts of the population. Starting in 2006, when seismic measurements were used to detect oil deposits, residents of the Albertine Graben region had to be resettled. This is described in rather broad terms by Trina Fahey, Social Impact Manager of Tullow Oil, when noting “the challenges encountered; including the difficulty of meeting international best practice guidelines vis-à-vis national legislative requirements” (Fahey n.d., 1). Viewed from a different perspective, the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) describes cases of displacement and human rights violations (cf. AFIEGO 2013). Furthermore, various sources (cf. IDMC 2014; IPIS 2014; IRIN 2015) report on “evictions in the region and complain about human rights abuses, including lack of consultation, notification and compensation. Land and property owners with valid title deeds have not been immune from eviction” (IDMC 2014).
With the understanding that the envisioned oil exploitation in the Lake Albert basin has already had an impact on residents of the area, this thesis highlights, in particular, the role of women in the process of development-induced migration. Migration of any kind has an impact on the people in question. It affects men, women, and children alike. However, women are known to be especially prone to the negative effects of the loss of land (cf. Klaasen, Lechtenfeld & Pove 2011; Holmes & Jones 2009; Makura-Paradza 2010), and therefore special emphasis is placed on the vulnerability of women under the impact of development-induced migration in the Western Ugandan districts of Hoima and Buliisa.
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1.1 Problem Description
The scientific and public interest in the Ugandan oil has increased in recent years. However, the oil exploration in the Albertine Graben, both onshore and offshore already started in the late 1990’s, with the information about major finds also emerging in 2006 and 2007 (Litvinoff 2012). As shown in the map (fig. 1), the oil find of the Albertine Graben is divided into blocks, whereby three companies have equal stakes in the entire amount of oil that is has been discovered in that region thanks to seismic measures. The three companies that each have legal ownership of several parts of the oil find, are the UK-based Tullow Oil PLC, the French company Total S.A. and the Chinese company CNOOC LIMITED (Total S.A. 2014; CNOOC LIMITED 2005).
Fig. 1, Overview of the oil find in the Albertine Graben, retrieved from http://tullowoil.com/operations/east-africa/uganda on 16 September 2015
As the overview provided by the oil company Total S.A. (Annex A) suggests, the exploitation of oil does not only involve the digging of wells, however. Instead, there
3 are several other measures that have to be taken before oil drilling activities can begin. In the Ugandan case, 116 wells have been dug in all areas where oil was suspected to be located. In 102 cases, hydrocarbons have been detected in the subsurface (Directorate of Petroleum –Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development Uganda, 2015). In those areas, where oil and/or gas has been detected in the subsurface, the wells are being sealed and secured until the infrastructure for its exploitation is created. The necessary infrastructure consists of the construction of a refinery with an oil waste management plant and the pipelines that connect the oil wells with the refinery. Besides, the construction of new roads that connect the different exploitation and production sites, that must also be suited for frequent use by heavy vehicles, are a necessity. Furthermore, a railway connection from Uganda via Kenya towards the coast of the Indian Ocean is envisioned (Tullow Oil PLC 2015; ActionAid Uganda 2015). As a logical consequence, for all these activities, land will have to be used, be it land that is uninhabited or, as in the majority of cases, land that is actually inhabited by people.
According to the Ugandan constitution however, land is a property and this is justified by Article 26:
‘ (1) Every person has a right to own property either individually or in association with others.
(2) No person shall be compulsorily deprived of property or any interest in or right over property of any description except where the following conditions are satisfied—
(a) the taking of possession or acquisition is necessary for public use or in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health; and
(b) the compulsory taking of possession or acquisition of property is made under a law which makes provision for—
(i) prompt payment of fair and adequate compensation, prior to the taking of possession or acquisition of the property;
And:
(ii) a right of access to a court of law by any person who has an interest or right over the property.’
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Even in this legal text, exceptions to the rule are noted. In case it is necessary for public use, for instance, it is possible that persons will be compulsorily deprived of their property. By framing the envisioned oil drilling activities in the Albertine Graben as a case of economic development that will subsequently serve the greater public good, the use of land in the Albertine Graben is regarded as necessary for public purposes, thereby making it legal to deprive people of their property. Affected persons are assured an appropriate compensation. Besides, they have the right to access a court of law with regard to the deprivation of their property. According to the Directorate of Petroleum, “the Albertine Graben was declared a special planning area and emphasis has been put on physical planning of Municipalities and other towns in the region” (Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development Uganda, 2015).
According to Hickey, Bukenya, Izama and Kizito (2015a, p. 14), alone in Hoima, 6,000 people have been evicted and have had to leave their land for the purpose of the economic development project taking place. A document received from one of the secondary stakeholders confirms these numbers. Numbers of people who have been evicted in Buliisa are not available yet.
As related in Article 26(2)(b)(i), affected people are either financially compensated, or they will be offered an alternative place for settlement. The start of oil drilling activities is probably not going to take place before 2018 (cf. ibid).
Altogether, a certain migratory movement is taking place in the Western part of Uganda. Putting the focus on land governance in the post-conflict country Uganda, migratory movements of this size can have a remarkable effect, seen that the topic of land conflicts is very relevant in the Ugandan context anyway.
Referring to the findings of several case studies (Neumayer & Plümper 2007; Yavinsky 2013), women show higher levels of vulnerability when it comes to the loss of land, for example, when they are hit by a natural hazard. In the Ugandan context it is thus interesting to assess the women’s role and their vulnerability, when it comes to relocation and compensation over the loss of land and, especially taking into consideration the societal structure in Uganda, that is characterized by patriarchal structures, with men being in the ruling positions both in private and public spheres. Land is a cross-cutting issue that combines all spheres of life. It consists of private,
5 individual and psycho-social factors, as well as, the means to secure a livelihood and to generate income for men and women.
1.2 Research Question
The outlined research aims to explore the patterns of development-induced migration, the vulnerability of women and its possible linkage to the oil find in the area of the Lake Albert basin in Uganda.
Consequently, it is the objective of this research to: investigate the vulnerability of women under the impact of development-induced migration that has reportedly been taking place in the Lake Albert basin since 2006.
Accordingly, the general research question is:
What are the consequences of development-induced migration that is reportedly taking place since 2006 in the Lake Albert basin for the women’s vulnerability?
1.2.1 Sub-Research Questions
In order to address the research question in a more detailed manner, three sub-research questions have been formulated.
The first sub research question is theoretically informed, the second one empirically. The third sub research question is analytical and focuses on the insights gained by theory and empiricism for the specific field of interest.
Accordingly, the sub research questions are formulated as follows:
1. How does the relevant scientific literature describe development-induced migration that is taking place in the Lake Albert basin since 2006 and the impact it has on the women’s vulnerability?
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2. How do relevant stakeholders characterize the vulnerability of women under the impact of development-induced migration that is happening in the Lake Albert basin since 2006?
3. Combining the theoretical and the empirical findings, what are the factors determining the vulnerability of women under the impact of development-induced migration that is reportedly taking place in the Lake Albert basin since 2006?
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2 Theoretical Background The theoretical background of this research is based on findings about the relationship between the abundance of the natural resource oil and conflict, the conceptualization of vulnerability in general and the vulnerability of women in particular. Furthermore, it is based on conceptualizations about the meaning of land as a tangible and intangible asset.
2.1 Oil and Conflict
The oil find in Uganda may pose an outstanding opportunity for the country to boost its economy and create wealth for its population. In view of success stories such as Norway, one might see potential for Uganda to get the best out of its natural resources. Also countries in the Middle East have shown impressive figures in terms of economic growth since the trade with oil had begun. However, unfortunately hardly any country with an abundance of natural resources has witnessed such positive effects as Norway has. The reasons for this are diverse. Following the reasoning of Norwegian economist Stein Holden, it was Norway’s greatest advantage to have a “stable democracy since it acquired independence in 1905. (…) The legal system worked well, and the media was actively evaluating and commenting upon the workings of the system” (Holden 2013, p. 14). These are said to be the main reasons why the country managed to benefit from its oil resources.
Norway being the exception to the rule, scientists such as Ross, Stiglitz and Sachs (Stiglitz 2012; Sachs & Warner 1997) refer to a phenomenon called “the resource curse” to describe a frequently seen paradox in which states abundant in resources perform worse than their resource-poor counterparts (Ross 1999). The resource curse is categorized into different, partially overlapping sub-phenomena, such as the “Dutch disease”, enclave effects, and the repression effect. Altogether, Ross states that the abundance of natural resources and the occurrence of civil war are “highly correlated” (Ross 2004, p. 35).
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Within the framework of resource curse theory, Philippe Le Billon provides an analysis that enables a more detailed understanding of the potential risks that arise for certain regions with an abundance of oil. Although “African oil-producing countries have not, on average, been more frequently at war than non-oil producers” (Le Billon 2010, p. 63), they can get “stuck” in armed conflict – but this is more likely to be the case due to patterns of autocratic leadership than to the abundance of oil in the first place. According to Le Billon, the following conditions are likely to reinforce occurrences of violence in relation to the abundance of oil:
Onshore oil fields are more likely to instigate violence than off-shore oil fields;
Oil deposits discovered in regions with “pre-existing territorially-based conflict” (ibid., p. 64) are more likely to play a role in the unfolding of armed conflict;
The lower the per capita rent achieved from the commercial trading of oil, the higher the likelihood that people remain dependent on formerly existing structures of poverty, which can reinforce eruptions of violence;
In relation to the former, the lack of strong institutions is likely to result in violence;
The volatile nature of oil prices, especially declining oil prices, can have an impact on the development and escalation of conflicts.
The oil field in the Lake Albert basin is an onshore location. In addition, the Western Ugandan region belongs to the kingdom of Bunyoro, which has in the past and more recently been involved in territorial conflicts over land and power with the kingdom of Buganda (Miirima 2011). Drilling activities have not yet begun and are not likely to before 2018, so it is difficult to make any predictions about the anticipated per capita rent at this point in time. Taking the International Monetary Fund’s analysis of macroeconomic stability in Uganda as a guideline, Ugandan institutions – which can play a role in regulating the financial benefits derived from oil exploitation – are rather weak. Experience from other African countries shows that weak institutions, in combination with liberalization, can allow “inefficient markets to replace inefficient states” (Selassie 2008, p. 30). In this context, an inefficient market is referred to as a
9 market that lacks “interest and foreign exchange controls”, that is not able to provide credits and subsidies to “preferred sectors” and that does not offer trade protection (ibid., p.31). Obviously, these factors are interconnected to functioning institutions.
Moreover, geographical factors of the land-locked country and limited openness to foreign trade may pose challenges to the country’s ability to derive economic benefits from commercial oil trading on a vast scale.
However, Le Billon emphasizes that oil discovery and exploitation in Africa are not conditions sine qua non resulting in conflicts, but nevertheless, can contribute to the complexity of the economic, political and social situation given.
Subsequently, it can be stated that the abundance of the natural resource oil can have a major impact on the political situation and thus the societal reality of a country. Since the vulnerability of women in a society is determined by societal structures, by the stability of a social and political system, it is essential to assess the women’s situation also with regard to the overall developments that happen as an effect of the oil find. Since oil drilling activities have not yet started in Uganda, the research focuses on the developments that are reasoned by the oil find and that are reported so far.
2.2 Development-Induced Migration
Before addressing the characteristics of development-induced migration, it is important to address the general concept of migration. According to Christopher McDowell and Arjan de Haan (1997), migration, i.e. the movement of populations, is by no means an exclusively modern phenomenon. Referring to Waller (1985, cited in Mc Dowell & de Haan 1997, p. 4), the authors describe the pre-colonial East African region as “a frontier region where society was fluid, highly adaptable, and capable of absorbing outsiders easily. Labour, rather than land, was the scarce resource”. Hence, people migrated
10 frequently and it is a phenomenon that has multiple dimensions and cannot be explained with a monolithic approach.
Furthermore, those who stay instead of leaving also play an important role in the understanding of migration. The reasons some people choose to stay are intertwined with the reasons for the ones who leave. In some cases, the people who stay can remain on their land, where they can continue burying their ancestors, et cetera. This can be regarded positively at first glance, but this can also be an indicator for a certain kind of deprivation. The ones who cannot leave are very often not supposed to leave because they are not entitled to and in fact this is often determined by “caste, gender, religion or region, or economic factors including relative deprivation (Ghosh 1992: 426; Singh 1984; Thadani and Todaro 1984)” (ibid., p. 8). The positive attribution of remaining on familiar land and being able to continue customary traditions can thus have a downside, for example when this is due to (social) immobility and a disadvantageous setting compared to those able to migrate.
Along the same line of reasoning, the authors scrutinize the distinction between forced and voluntary migration. People who feel compelled to migrate in order to protect themselves have not necessarily experienced force. Nevertheless it would not be precise to regard the decision to migrate as a self-determined or voluntary one.
As this suggests, it is very difficult and perhaps even inappropriate to draw definitional boundaries between “internal and international migration, voluntary and involuntary movement, negative ‘distress’ migration and positive ‘livelihood’ migration” (Robinson 2003, p. 4). As an alternative, Robinson proposes a conceptualization of all patterns of migration as a continuum, with concepts that sometimes only differ in nuance and that are overlapping and not mutually exclusive.
This thesis focuses on migration as a consequence of economic development in Uganda. Hence, when speaking of “development-induced migration”, the following definition serves as a guideline for understanding its main characteristics:
“Forced population displacement is always crisis-prone, even when necessary as part of broad and beneficial development programs. It is a profound socioeconomic and cultural disruption for those affected. Dislocation breaks up living patterns and social continuity. It dismantles existing modes of production, disrupts social networks, causes
11 the impoverishment of many of those uprooted, threatens their cultural identity, and increases the risks of epidemics and health problems.” (Robinson 2003, p. 10)
Development-induced migration is understood to be a type of migration that is initially precipitated with force, whatever this might mean for the further course of the migratory process. The initial use of force is also mentioned by Scheel and Squire (2014, p. 188, cited in Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. 2014), who highlight the extremity of conditions “under which certain groups ‘decide’ to undertake the migratory journey”. The reasons for this are diverse, ranging from “political persecution, ethnic conflict, inequitable access to natural resources, declining living conditions, and chronic and pervasive human rights abuses”. Under those circumstances, it is important to acknowledge the victimhood of migrants and the “limited agency on the part of those migrating” (ibid.).
2.3 The Double-Structured Nature of Vulnerability
This research aims to address the vulnerability of women under the impact of development-induced migration and its linkage to the oil find in the Albertine Graben. The women’s vulnerability is measured according to the theoretical framework by Bohle (2001). This framework refers back to the model by Chambers (1989) and in general, vulnerability is seen as “the degree to which a system may react adversely to the occurrence of calamitous or hazardous event” (Timmermann 1991, cited in Bohle 1993, p. 45). It is understood as one end of a continuum, whereas human security is the other end of the same continuum.
The theoretical discourse on vulnerability derives its main concepts from situations of “defencelessness, insecurity and exposure” (Chambers 1989, p. 1), hence a situation of victimhood, as is mentioned under the definition for ‘development-induced migration. Hereby victimhood develops due to circumstances of global environmental and societal changes (Brklacich, Chazan & Bohle 2010, p. 35, cited in Matthew & MacDonald 2010).
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Vulnerability is mainly determined by three co-ordinates:
1) The risk of exposure to crisis, stress and shocks 2) The risk of inadequate capacities to cope with stress, crisis and shocks 3) The risk of severe consequences of, and the attendant risks of slow or limited poverty (resiliency) from, crises, risks and shocks (‘potentiality’) (ibid.)
These three dimensions are helpful to understand the concept to vulnerability. It gives insight in the reasons why a certain event, like a natural hazard, or the unexpected loss of the livelihood, can be devastating to some people, whereas the same happening does not have a major impact on others.
Vulnerability is a multi-faceted phenomenon and the factors through which it is determined, are diverse. Bohle distinguishes between the causal structural, hence external factors, and internal factors, that focus on “coping and action to overcome
or at least mitigate the negative effects of economic and ecological change” (Bohle 2001, p. 3), as it is illustrated in Figure 2.
Fig. 2, Model for the analysis of vulnerability according to Bohle’s theory of the double structure of vulnerability (Bohle 2001,p. 4 IN: Fernando 2012, p. 24)
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2.3.1 The External Side of Vulnerability
The external side of vulnerability contains approaches of entitlement and capability discourse, human ecology, and political economy (Fernando 2010). The entitlement discourse is mainly shaped by Sen, according to whom “the entitlement of a person stands for a set of different alternative commodity bundles that a person can acquire through the use of various legal channels of acquirement open to someone in his position” (Sen 1990, p. 36, cited in Bohle 1993, p. 46). Hereby, “someone’s position” plays a central role. Sen does not speak of the complete unavailability of certain capabilities, like “political liberties, the freedom of association, the free choice of occupation, and a variety of social rights” (Nussbaum 2003, p. 36), but he poses the question, for whom these capabilities are accessible and for whom they are out of reach, hence who is entitled and who is not. Finally, this entitlement appears to be determined by an individual’s social position. The discourse on entitlement takes in a legal and economic perspective and defines those as (external) factors that determine social vulnerability. With a focus on legal and economic perspectives, the entitlement discourse eventually sheds light upon institutional structures within a society by which well-being, class, social status and gender are determined (Adger 2006, p. 270).
The human ecology perspective is guided by the observation that “social systems make continual homeostatic adjustments (…) to environmental events” (Mc Laughlin & Dietz 2007, p. 2) and thereby gain control over nature in an increasing manner. Social systems have the tendency to search for a condition of balance in order to keep internal processes working and remain more or less unaffected by external influences. Looking at the vulnerability of humans towards natural hazards, it is questionable in what way the increasing control by humans of nature actually leads to more control, or whether the opposite is the case. Seen from the social welfare perspective, the human ecology standpoint would most likely scrutinize the payoff of oil explorations with regard to evicted people and an endangered ecosystem, which in the end – according to a holistic approach of an ecosystem entailing humans, as well, as other living species and nature - does not necessarily lead to state of more control, at least not about social dynamics that arise symptomatically from the (ecological) transformations.
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With regard to the conceptualisation of external vulnerability, the political economy perspective asks for the ‘broader meaning’ of vulnerability, and proneness to disaster or catastrophes to occur. Watts and Bohle (1993, p. 46) argue that vulnerability “in a narrow sense is about individual command over basic necessities; in a wider sense it should identify the totality of individual rights and social entitlements. And in a still broader sense it should also speak to the structural properties of the political economy itself” (1993, p. 46) and thus the governing of structures that preserve, or promote patterns of inequality when it comes to the proneness towards disasters, or catastrophes that lead to the loss of the livelihood of people, for example. Altogether, the political economy perspective thus focuses on the institutional patterns that are influenced by production or economic regulation (Birkmann 2013).
As stated earlier, the degree of exposure towards a perturbation is important to an understanding of vulnerability. When referring to exposure, it means “the degree, duration and/or extent in which the system is in contact with, or subject to, the perturbation”. Furthermore, the degree of exposure “seems to be an attribute of the relationship between the system and the perturbation, rather than of the system itself”, hence it is determined by the external side of vulnerability, as well.
2.3.2 The Internal Side of Vulnerability
The internal side of vulnerability focuses on “coping and action to overcome or at least mitigate the negative effects of economic and ecological change” (Bohle 2001, p. 3). According to Lazarus and Folkman (1980, p. 223), coping consists of the “cognitive and behavioral efforts made, to master, tolerate, or reduce external and internal demands and conflicts among them.”
In Bohle’s double-structured model of vulnerability, these coping and/or mitigation efforts are theoretically based upon action-oriented approaches, the concept of access to coping resources or assets, and topics of conflict and crisis theory (ibid.).
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The action-oriented approaches depend on structure and agency (Giddens 1996), hence on factors that actually allow people to make use of their capabilities. These concepts are interrelated of course.
The concept of access to coping resources or assets, as Bohle calls it, distinguishes between “economic, socio-political, infrastructural, ecological and personal assets” (Bohle 2001, p. 3). Hereby, the stock of assets that are controlled by people plays a major role. The more assets they can control, the better they are able to withstand internal and external pressure. With a focus on developing countries, social assets are regarded to be the most ubiquitous and even the most important for peoples’ coping strategies, as economic, infrastructural and socio-political assets are thought to be limited.
Finally, findings from conflict and crisis theory play an important role, as well. “Issues of access to control over resources, assets and coping capacities are, as a rule, highly contested in an arena of risk and criticality” as it is likely to be the case in complex developing country settings (ibid., p. 3).
In reference to the framework presented by Ribot and Peluso (2003, p.153), the notion of access to resources is seen in this context as “the ability to derive benefits from things” and not only the official right to do so. Hence, the ability to retrieve benefits from things is determined by a “bundle of powers” (ibid.), which itself is shaped by social relationships and political-economic realities. With distinct focuses on the use of natural resources, the subjects to be discussed, and the opportunities and restrictions that arise, they are mainly formed by the “access to technology, capital, markets, labor, knowledge, authority, identity, and social relations” (ibid., p. 173).
Consequently, this framework will be used in order to approach the topic of vulnerability in general, but as mentioned before, this research will focus on the gender- dimension of vulnerability to women specifically. Following the logic of Bohle’s framework, the external and internal vulnerability applies to women, as well as to men. However, gender (just like ethnicity, occupation and location of residence, cf. Fernando 2010, p. 27) puts individuals at risk. Hence, the attribute of being female can be treated as an “inherent vulnerability” (Fernando 2010, p. 27) that consequently belongs to the
16 internal vulnerabilities that are determined through the factors of external vulnerability and vice versa.
2.4 The Vulnerability of Women
Gender refers to the differences between men and women that are determined by conventions, political and social means. Taking the entitlement discourse as a starting point, the level of vulnerability is determined by societal realities, gender relationships and social structures. Consequently, the degree to which the vulnerability of individuals depends on their gender, can give an insight in the social structures of a society as a whole.
Gender belongs to the external and contextual factors influencing vulnerability (Fernando 2012), while especially females are regarded as showing higher levels of vulnerability than men, as is stated by El Jacko: “Displacement disproportionately disadvantages women, because it results in reduced access to resources to cope with household responsibility and increased physical and emotional violence” (2002, cited in Jolly & Reeves 2005, p. 14).
The reasons for this are diverse. In cases of migration due to conflict or natural hazards, people are very often unprepared for this. Additionally, they lack information about the reasons and the consequences of the hazard, or the unrest and especially in developing countries, women cannot participate in formal education to the same extent, as men, which gives them less access to the labour market and makes them less flexible in terms of social mobility.
Furthermore, during the journey and the entire process of displacement, the security level tends to be lowered, which makes women especially prone to become victims of sexual abuse, which furthermore makes them more susceptible to illnesses, like HIV/Aids (Jolly & Reeves 2005). But it is not only during the migratory journey that security levels are lower than in their permanent settings. Women also become more vulnerable when they are forced to change their source of income. A women who used to sell the vegetables that she had grown in her own garden in order to generate an
17 income, becomes more vulnerable when she has to earn money through collecting firewood, which forces her to wander to remote places where she is more likely to suffer various attacks.
Altogether, development-induced migration can heavily affect the gender roles within a relationship. Kinship and family relations are likely to be untied due to migratory movements. Families often cannot stay together in one place and no longer have the means of generating an income. Therefore, women are more likely to be forced to take over manifold tasks, for example more decision-making power about topics that were usually not theirs to decide about, such as the financial matters of the household for example, and “a greater burden of responsibility and labour” (Jolly & Reeves 2005, p. 19. Such a development does not necessarily have to be for the worse, just like migration overall. “Migration entails a complex, often contradictory class positioning” (ibid., p. 20), it can result in an up-scaling in terms of social status, but, under the impact of hazards or conflict, the disintegration of familiar ties is more frequently known to bear the risk of a social downward movement for women.
Furthermore, the status of land ownership can have an influence on the vulnerability of women. In Uganda, land ownership is very often organized according to customary land rights and the land that is inhabited by a family, belongs to the husband and father of the family. When it comes to a separation, or a forced movement, women are very likely to run the risk of losing their access to land, as customary land rights are rather disadvantageous for women because they do not adequately offer them any property rights (USAID 2010, p. 1 et seq.) Since women are not the owners of the land, they do not automatically have the right to receive compensational payments over the loss of land in those cases where they are provided. However, the discussion about land rights for women as a possible solution is a rather controversial one. Referring to the discourse about land rights and gender, as it is shaped by Jackson (2003), Argawal (2003) and others, “land rights for women is not the inevitable conclusion of a gender analysis of land” (Jackson 2003, p. 476). Land ownership is only one component of a complex set of social and political rules and practices and since the absence of land rights for women among the rural poor is only one facet of a complex topic, it is not very likely that the official introduction of land rights for women would bring a major
18 change to the general patterns that determine the vulnerability of women under the impact of any kind of migration.
2.5 The Meaning of Land
In the context of the oil find in Western Uganda, development-induced migration takes paces due to the development of oil industry. In order to assess the social implications of this process and its impact on the vulnerability on women, it is important to understand the meaning of land, as it plays an important role in Ugandan society.
According to the Land Act of 1998, the ownership of land in Uganda is characterized by four different types of ownership. It is either owned according to customary land rights, leasehold, freehold, or ‘mailo’ (Mwesigye, Matsumoto & Otsuka 2014, p. 4), which is a customary type of freehold land ownership:
“The Land Act 1998 defines ‘freehold tenure’ as a tenure that derives its legality from the Constitution and the written law. Freehold tenure may involve either a grant of land in perpetuity, or for a lesser specified time period. The Act specifies that the holder of land in freehold has full power of ownership of it. This means that he or she may use it for any lawful purpose and sell, rent, lease, dispose of it by will or transact it in any other way as he or she sees fit. Only citizens of Uganda are entitled to own land under freehold tenure. Non-citizens may lease it for a period up to 99 years.
Leasehold tenure is a form of tenure whereby one party grants to another the right to exclusive possession of land for a specified period, usually in exchange for the payment of rent. Any owner of land in Uganda – whether through freehold, Mailo or customary tenure – may grant a lease to another person. In practice, much of the land that is leased was previously owned by government bodies, particularly the Land Commission and the District Land Boards, and these tend to impose some development conditions on the land’s subsequent use.
The Land Act 1998 treats Mailo tenure almost identically to freehold tenure.
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Registered land can be held in perpetuity and a Mailo owner is entitled to enjoy all the powers of a freehold owner. The only significant difference is that Mailo owners should not use these powers against the interests of customary tenants, bona fide or lawful occupants. This provision was introduced due to concern at the possible mass eviction of thousands of people who were occupying Mailo land, as customary tenants or squatters, at the time when the Act was passed.
(…)With the exception of land in Buganda (which is mainly held under Mailo) and urban areas (where it is held under freehold, or leasehold) most land in Uganda is held under customary tenure. The 1995 Constitution restored recognition of the rights of those who held such land and the Land Act explicitly recognized that customary law should regulate this form of land tenure. There are a number of different types of customary land tenure in different parts of Uganda. In some places the land is held communally, in some it belongs to a particular clan while in others it is held by individuals. The rules of customary law also vary in different parts of the country. The Land Act 1998 states that customary land tenure shall be governed by rules generally accepted as binding by the particular community. Anyone who acquires land in that community shall also be bound by the same rules. The exceptions to this are that no custom is permitted which is ‘repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience, or being incompatible either directly or indirectly with any written law’” (SSA: UHSNET 2014, no pagination)
“Large numbers of the world’s poorest people, especially in Asia and sub-Sahara Africa, live in farming households and depend for their livelihoods on the productive use of land” (Quan 2002, p. 2). This also applies to Uganda, where about 84 per cent of the population lives in rural areas (World Bank 2014).
Ugandan agriculture is mainly characterized “by smallholder farmers who occupy the majority of land and produce most of the crop and livestock products” (Salami, Kamara & Brixiova 2010, p. 1). Smallholder farmers often live and work under volatile circumstances, their income depends on food and energy prices that continuously change and during recent years, they have been hit severely by the effects of the global financial crisis and climatic changes due to the global change in climate conditions.
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Smallholder farmers have a rather low productivity, which is also conditioned by the “lack of access to markets, credit and technology” (ibid.).
While agriculture used to be “the backbone of the Ugandan economy” (FAO 2003; Salami, Kamara & Brixiova 2010), this has changed slightly. Nevertheless, it still plays an important role. “Agricultural products contribute to nearly all of Uganda's foreign exchange earnings, with coffee (of which Uganda is Africa's leading producer) contributing the largest percentage of 19% of the country's exports” (PWC 2015).
Land is regarded to be crucial for the majority of the Ugandan population and in addition, it plays an important role for the economic development of the country, for example with regard to the export of agricultural goods, or the extraction of natural resources. Altogether, land is an important livelihood asset. It offers people “shelter, [the means for] food production and other livelihood activities depend on it” (DFID 2002, p. 1).
But there is another important feature that designates the value of land to the Ugandan people.
As the blog entry by Betty Okot “Where I come from, land means more than real suggests, land in Uganda is related to estate. It isn’t just a slice of earth, which can be farmed, inherited, built on, sold or bought. In most the people’s identity and vice versa. of Uganda, land equates to history, heritage, Defining identity as “an abiding sense identity, belonging, rights and relationships. It creates social security and helps define social, of selfhood, the core of which makes cultural, religious values and beliefs systems. life predictable to an individual” However, when these collide with the idea of commoditising land, the people who live on and (Northrup 1989, p. 5, cited in work the land suffer.“ Fulgencio 2009, p. 4), it becomes clear Blog Post by Betty Okot, iied 2013 that identity matters, not only in terms
of social well-being, but also in terms of a meaning to life, thus “the sense that one is safe in the world physically, psychologically, socially, even spiritually” (Rupesinghe 1996, p. 14 cited in Fulgencio 2009, p. 4).
Speaking about new states, Doornbos states that people’s roots of identity are not connected to actors or groupings of the political sphere. Instead meaning is derived
21 from “sub-national units, such as linguistic, ethnic, religious, racial or regional collectives” (1978, cited in Intenational Alert 2013, p. 11), whose boundaries are demarcated along physical and ethnic lines. Hereby, Doornbos emphasizes the linkage between identity and power, just like discussed by Huggins (2010, p. 5), who states that “land is essential to most rural livelihoods, but it is also bound up very strongly with issues of ‘identity and power’”. One of the most challenging consequences arising from this linkage probably lies in the experience made that “land scarcity and alienation of customary land has led to land disputes at the micro-level, the tensions around such ‘local’ and ‘intra-community’ conflicts (…) have generally been transferred into the ‘inter-community level’” (ibid.). This means that the causing of disputes over land between ideological sub-groups can have severe consequences that go beyond the community level.
Similar depictions can be found by Siders (2003, p. 716), who elaborates on the consequences of evictions that took place during the war in Mozambique. According to her, social dislocation will have “grave consequences”, “where social relationships and historical bonds—relationship to family, community, ancestors and the land—are emphasised as vital to individual well-being”.
Furthermore, the uncertainty about land, e.g. when people are in a state of uncertainty as to whether they are likely to keep the land or lose it, means that “they have little incentive to invest in or conserve it” (DFID 2002, p. 4), which reinforces the first two risks, but also negatively affects the capacity for development and growth on a bigger scale.
Consequently, the loss of land is critical to the inhabitants, because it puts the inhabitants’ livelihood at risk, but it is also likely to result in the loss of identification patterns and the untying of kinship relations, which in the end bears an increasing risk for poverty and a decreasing level of security on the local, regional and national level.
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2.6 Stakeholders
As stated in the research objective, various stakeholders were taken into consideration for this research. Referring to Bryson (2004, p. 21), there is no clear definition for what a stakeholder actually is and how to flawlessly identify them. Nutt and Backoff define stakeholders as “all parties who will be affected by or will affect the strategy” (1992, p. 439, cited in Bryson 2004, p. 21). The authors of the Community Tool Box by offered by the Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas (2015) agree on this and define stakeholders as “those who may be affected by or have an effect on an effort. They may also include people who have a strong interest in the effort for academic, philosophical, or political reasons, even though they and their families, friends, and associates are not directly affected by it.” In the following, they distinguish between primary, secondary and key stakeholders.
Primary stakeholders can be defined as “the beneficiaries or targets of the effort” (The Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas, 2015, no pagination). They are the ones who either gain something, e.g. money, or capital in the widest sense, whereas the ‘targets of the effort’ do not necessarily gain anything themselves, but instead facilitate a gain on a larger scale, for instance for the benefit of a community. Hence, this group of so-called stakeholders actually does not have a stake in what happens, since they hardly have the opportunity to bring about changes to the actual situation.
Secondary stakeholders are those who are “directly involved with or responsible for beneficiaries or targets of the effort” (ibid.). This group can consist of the family members of an individual, schoolteachers or professionals who interact directly with the primary stakeholders.
Key stakeholders are the government officials and policy makers who can “devise, pass, and enforce laws and regulations” (ibid.) and who can have a tremendous stake in the realization of certain processes.
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The groups of stakeholders were identified for the research are presented in Table 1:
Primary Individuals in Hoima and Buliisa who belong to the group of stakeholders “development-induced migrants”, hence those who will have to or already have had to leave their homes
- As the research addresses women’s vulnerability under the impact of development-induced migration, the women affected by this are identified as the primary and main stakeholders.
- Family members of the primary stakeholders Secondary - Non-governmental actors who offer services to the primary stakeholders stakeholders - The oil companies involved in the envisioned oil-drilling activities and that are offering corporate social responsibility programs to the affected communities
- Government officials, land officers Key - Policy makers, such as governmental human rights organizations, stakeholders and non-governmental actors
Table 1, Overview of stakeholders and affected people (Source: Author)
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3 Methodology and Methods The research project was conducted between October 2015 and May 2016, as a research in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in International Development Studies.
The entire research work was conducted as a collaboration effort between the PhD researcher and lecturer Ms. Specioza Twinamasiko, who works at Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda. Both research projects, this MSc thesis and Specioza Twinamasiko’s PhD thesis, were conducted as a part of the overarching research project called ‘Grounding Land Governance, and Conflicts, Local Governance and Decentralization in post-conflict Uganda, Burundi and Southern Sudan’, which is funded by the Dutch Scientific Organization (NWO). Additionally, the team of researchers comprised two research assistants, Ms. Janet Ninsiima and Mr. Herbert Byaruhanga who are Ugandan citizens with a distinct knowledge of the topic of study and very high levels of proficiency in the languages of the regions.
The data gathering for the research was mainly divided into two parts – a desk study and field research. The desk study took place in Germany and the Netherlands with access to all necessary libraries, databases and the opportunity to consult experts at the university. The eight-week fieldwork was conducted during October and December 2015 in Uganda. During the fieldwork, a field trip to the Western Ugandan districts Hoima and Buliisa was completed. As Uganda is a country with diverse ethnic groups and various languages spoken, that are different from the official languages of English, Swahili and Luganda, the people in Hoima and Buliisa speak many different languages. The participants of this research were mainly Lugungu speakers, others also spoke Lunyoro, Lugbara and Luo. In Hoima, some of the people also spoke Lugbara and Luo and addition to that, Runyoro and Runyankole were spoken by several people. In some cases, people also spoke Rukiga. The majority of interviews could be conducted in the mother tongue of the participants, as the team of researchers consisted of enough Ugandan people proficient in the languages mentioned.
In addition to the field research in Hoima and Buliisa, a trip to the capital Kampala was made. In Kampala, it was possible to get in touch with members of the governmental body and representatives of the multinational oil companies that have their branches in the capital.
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The study was conducted according to a multi-method approach (see 3.2) and the methods used for this research were mixed according to the technique of triangulation. Triangulation means the blending of different data-collection methods, researchers and/or different data sources, so that “diverse viewpoints or standpoints cast light upon a topic” (Olsen 2004, p. 106). The data was gathered by four different researchers: three native Ugandans, and one German researcher. Three different data-collection methods were applied and also the data sources varied. Altogether, triangulation was used as a means to deepen the insights provided by the study and in order to enhance the validity of the research findings (Hussein 2009).
The data that was collected for this research was predominantly qualitative data. The stakeholders were diverse, the topic is complex, and so is the area where the phenomenon is being studied. Aiming to explore the women’s vulnerability under the impact of development-induced migration in the Lake Albert basin, the research sheds light upon feelings, impressions, morals and values experienced by the stakeholders and the ones who are directly affected. Those rather broad concepts can best be grasped with the help of qualitative data and therefore, the data gathered through the literature review, as well as the data gathered through the different interview methods, were analyzed according to qualitative schemes.
Because the life reality of women plays a central role for the study, major emphasis has been dedicated to the accounts given by the women themselves. The accounts given by other actors were seen as complementary to this.
3.1 The Exploratory Character of the Study
The research was structured on an exploratory study design. The study was not based upon an approved body of theory in the first place, but instead was intended to explore the particular social situation. Therefore, the study was only vaguely based upon some general research findings and conceptualizations and aimed at ending up with some more specific insights in the viability of those concepts and an enhanced understanding of the situation to be studied. In this case, the basic proposition was that there is a
26 relationship between the abundance of oil as a natural resource, violence and deprivation of certain groups within a population. Furthermore, it was accepted that women are likely to show high levels of vulnerability in cases of migration. Vulnerability as a concept was understood as a phenomenon that is shaped by external and internal factors (Bohle 2011). Moreover, development-induced migration is understood to be a concept that is part of a continuum, in which the distinction between voluntarily and involuntarily is sometimes hard to differentiate.
3.2 Research Set Up
The design of this research entails a tripartite research method. Firstly, an extensive literature review was carried out. Secondly, individual interviews were conducted and thirdly, two focus group discussions were organized. Furthermore, the observations made as a participant observer during the entire research process have also been taken into account (Kawulich 2005). Throughout the entire time of field research in Uganda, valuable information was also gathered during informal communications and the regular use of media, such as radio, TV, newspapers and magazines. In reference to Hammersley and Atkinson (2007), such documentary sources reveal a certain perception of reality, and subsequently allow a (re-)construction of it.
The research process was divided into two phases, a deductive phase and later on, an inductive phase. The deductive phase took place during the first part of the field research in Hoima and Buliisa. The extensive literature review was started before the field trip commenced. Hence, preliminary concepts and topics to focus on during the fieldwork were identified and interview guides for the focus group discussions and the individual interviews could be developed in a deductive manner. During the first days of the field trip to Hoima, these interview guides could be tested for applicability during three informational interviews and whereupon they were improved. In this regard the preliminary results from the informational interviews were taken into consideration in order to improve the interviewing procedure for further use.
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Following this, the research activities could be accomplished in an inductive manner. After having gained deeper general insights about the specific cases, the contributions given by interview partners and members of the focus group discussion could be analyzed according to the generalizability of the depictions.
The individual interviews with women who had to migrate due to the oil-related activities in their area, are considered to be the main source of information for this research. The other methods are mainly used to triangulate the women’s stories and to help put them in a broader context.
3.2.1 In-depth Literature Review
The in-depth literature review was pursued as a desk study from Wageningen (NL) and Bonn (GER) with access to the relevant databases and the library of Wageningen University and the United Nations University in Bonn. In order to have a balanced combination of resources in terms of literature, the following databases were extracted:
ActionAid Uganda / Oil in Uganda (http://www.oilinuganda.org/), as an informational website hosted by ActionAid Uganda et al, an NGO renowned for its human rights based approach; Eldis (www.eldis.org), as a database widely used for research in the field of Development Studies United Nations Database (https://data.un.org) Worldbank Database (www.data.worldbank.org), as the two highly relevant actors for all issues concerning International Development.
The literature was compiled with the help of keywords that were developed by applying the technique of concept mapping (University of Toronto, 2015), see Annex B.
In a first round the following keywords were used interchangeably: vulnerability, resilience, exposure, risk, danger, gender, female, sex, Western Uganda, Albertine Graben, Hoima, Buliisa, Masindi, East Africa, evictions, involuntary, resettlement,
28 moving, shifting, oil exploration, oil exploitation, economic development, oil production. This search lead to an outcome of 44 articles.
As the list of references shows, several other publications have been considered as relevant for the topic discussed in this research. Those publications were mainly recommended by fellow researchers and interview partners.
3.2.2 Focus Group Discussions
During the fieldwork, two focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted, one in a village belonging to the district Hoima and a second one in Buliisa. Focus group discussions are popular in social sciences due to its participatory character. They are especially well suited for people who might otherwise have difficulties to "articulate their thoughts easily”, hence a FGD can "provide collective power to marginalised people" (Liamputtong 2011, p. 3). Referring back to the patriarchic structure of the Ugandan society and acknowledging the focus on women of this research, the FGD play a crucial role in the process of data collection. It is assumed that focus group discussions enable the female participants to open up in a way that they would most likely not do when their husbands are around, or when they are in the isolated setting of an individual interview.
According to Denscombe (2010, p. 177), “focus groups have six to nine people in them”. This number of people is considered to be large enough to explore a whole range of views, still the group is not too big to be managed during the discussion. “In small scale research projects the numbers are often smaller” (ibid.), nevertheless, it was the target of this research to organize focus group discussions with at least six women participating in it.
In order to create a convenient atmosphere for the women, refreshments were offered and all participants were asked to wear name tags on their shirts. As a sign of appreciation and also to practically enable the women to travel to the site where the FGD took place, transport costs were covered to an equal amount for every participant.
Before the focus group discussions started, the participants were introduced to the researchers and were verbally informed about the aim of the research and the
29 confidentiality in the use of the data that were provided by the participants. They were informed about their right to step out of the discussion or stop it at any time. Thanks to the assistance of a translator, it could be ensured that the information was understood by all participants, as well as, by the researchers.
3.2.3 Individual Interviews
The individual interviews were designed as semi-structured interviews. This means that clear list of issues was formulated in advance with topics that would be addressed during the interviews. Despite those pre-formulated questions, it is the interviewee, who is supposed to develop ideas and speak widely about the question raised by the interviewer.
According to the group stakeholders that were identified as being important for this research (see fig. 3), people of different groupings were asked to give an interview. Firstly, women, who were affected by development-induced migration due to oil exploitation in the districts Hoima and Buliisa were approached. Secondly, non-state actors, such as NGOs, were contacted for interviews. Thirdly, state actors, such as members of the governmental body were addressed (RDC’s) and fourthly, private sector actors were asked to participate in the research (oil companies, security firms).
Semi-structured questionnaires (see Annex C) were prepared and printed. After having gained insights during the deductive phase of the research, the questionnaires were modified and improved in terms of content, language and length. All interviews were held in a face-to-face-setting and the accounts given by the interviewees were openly documented by the interviewer.
The questionnaire for the women consisted of open questions about the current living situation (location and circumstances), the source of income and a general enquiry about the current status of wellbeing. Although a first tendency was given through the visible changes in the field locations (e.g. empty villages and destroyed houses), it was the intention to avoid guided questions and a biased view on the topic. Therefore the interview started with open questions that allowed the interviewees to determine
30 themselves what they were willing to share with the interviewers. With regard to the content, these interviews differed slightly from the ones held with governmental and non-governmental actors. These actors were rather asked about the aims of their organization and their general insights on the oil find and whether it is related to any kind of migration. In case yes, the actors were asked to elaborate on the process of migration, the social circumstances that are connected to it et cetera.
Before the interviews were started, the participants were informed both orally and in a written form about the researchers, about the aim of the research, about the confidentiality in the use of the data and about the participants’ freedom to stop the interview at any time.
Subsequently, the interview notes were analyzed according to a method of qualitative data analysis.
3.3 Sampling Method for Discussions and Interviews
As usual in qualitative research, there was no fixed number of participants before the actual research activities got started. Instead, the ‘redundancy criterion’ was applied, which means: “When no new information is forthcoming from new sampled units, stop collecting data” (Hardon, Hodgkin & Fresle 2004, p. 64). This principle was applied throughout the entire process of researching. In addition, the use of triangulation was supposed to make sure that a diverse set of data could be collected, aiming to reach the level of saturation and to fulfill the redundancy criterion. However, for each data collection method, individual sampling approaches were applied.
The main decision that had to be taken before organizing focus group discussions and individual interviews was to clarify which focus the discussions and interviews were actually supposed to have. When limiting the scope of the study to “those sub-groups that have direct experience with the problem” (ibid., p. 59), it became apparent that women who had to migrate under the impact of oil exploitation in the Albertine Graben were the major sub-group that should be represented in focus group discussions and individual interviews.
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In general, the participants for individual interviews and focus group discussion were chosen according to a non-probability sampling. This kind of sampling takes places “when researchers find it difficult or undesirable to choose their sample on the basis of pure chance” (Kawulich 2001,p. 25). The non-probability sampling method was a purposive one, this means that “we sample with a purpose in mind” (Trochim 2006, no pagination). The fact that a list of possible stakeholders was drafted even before the fieldwork started, gives an indication that a certain group of people was pre-identified for interviews and focus group discussions in a very purposive way.
The actual process of approaching the affected women to attend focus group discussions or individual interviews was organized according to a snowball sampling system. The research assistant who spoke the local languages got in touch with a (male) local person who could function as a gatekeeper for the researchers and who managed to gather a number of women who were both affected from development-induced migration, and willing to participate in a focus group discussion. Snowball sampling is known for its downsides, nevertheless, within the setting of this research, it appeared to be the only viable option to get connected to affected women.
3.3.1 Sampling Method for Focus Group Discussions
Seeing the recommendations provided by Hardon, Hodgkin and Fresle (2004), and Freitas et al. (1998), researchers are well-advised to select the participants of focus group discussions according to homogeneous criteria in terms of socio-economic status, sex, age etc. In homogeneous groups, hierarchies are less likely to be displayed among the participants and this can play a major role for the content of the discussion.
During the deductive phase of the research it became clear – although this is a simplification of the whole phenomenon – there were two groups among the women who had to migrate under the impact of oil exploitation in the Albertine Graben. Sub- contractors of the government, who are supposed to compensate all persons who have to leave their land, supervise the process of development-induced migration. The compensations either consist of financial payments, or relocation, hence the offer of land as a substitution. Referring to the “two groups among the women”, one can very
32 roughly speak of women who have received compensation as one group, and a second group of women who did not receive anything (yet). Hence, using a maximum variation sampling technique, out of the pre-identified women, one focus group discussion was organized with women who had (at least officially) received compensation, and a second one with women who had not received anything at all.
Following the rule that a focus group discussion should contain of six to nine, or up to a maximum of 10 participants (Denscombe 2010), the first focus group discussion took place in Hoima with 11 women participating, whereas the second focus group discussion in Buliisa managed better to remain within the given frame, containing of 9 participants.
3.3.2 Sampling Method for Individual Interviews
The sampling method for the individual interviews was very similar to the ones applied for the focus group discussions. Sampling for individual interviews happened according to a purposive non-probability sampling scheme. As for the sampling of participants for the focus group discussions, individual women were approached by a gatekeeper whom the researchers identified as a helpful person during the fieldwork. That person provided the researchers with the contacts of women he know, thus according to a snowball sampling system.
Subsequently, a number of 23 individual interviews were held, with slightly more interviews being held in Hoima than in Buliisa. 11 of the 23 interviews were actually held with affected women individually. The remaining 12 individual interviews were held with husbands (mainly because the wives were not supposed to speak with interviewers themselves, or they did not dare to), non-governmental actors and government representatives.
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3.4 Data Analysis
The data gathered for this research was analyzed according to a qualitative coding scheme. Since the size of the sample was not determined until the research started, the level of saturation was used as an indicator to ensure that an appropriate number of people were interviewed and that the findings of the research fulfill the criterion of validity to the highest degree possible.
3.4.1 Qualitative Coding
“Coding is the process of combing the data for themes, ideas and categories and then marking similar passages of text with a code label so that they can easily be retrieved at a later stage for further comparison and analysis” (Gibbs 2012, no pagination). Coding as a technique to analyze data is used as it helps to get the most out of the data that has been gathered and furthermore, it serves as a good ‘control mechanism’ to the researcher, as it can avoid the loss of some sequences within the data.
For this research, the data was coded according to the coding scheme that is suggested by Denscombe (2010). Some of the proposed coding categories are rather vague, for example when focusing on an implied meaning or sentiment. Nevertheless, the messages conveyed also in an indirect manner contain important information. Subsequently, the sample size and the use of triangulation serve as measures to validate the accounts given by the participants.
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1) ‘Unitizing’ the data: the units that will be used for coding are sentences 2) Defining what will be coded: (shades of) an opinion, (implied) meanings/sentiments 3) Using respondent categories in order to group the findings according to their content and according to their origin. All parts that are labeled, hence coded in the same way, have been identified to be about the same topic. 4) Developing a hierarchy of codes and categories 5) Developing key concepts These concepts provide a deeper understanding of a certain domain. This helps to deepen the insights according to a given theory and is supposed to build the foundation for the conclusion of the research
(cf. Denscombe 2010, p. 275 et seq.)
The codes arose during the process of iteratively going through the interview and notes. Most of the codes gave insights on behaviours (e.g. getting engaged in land contestations or not), events in life (e.g. the day the a forceful eviction took place), strategies (e.g. hiring an alternative place because the former place of living became too dangerous), general conditions (e.g. hopelessness), relationships (e.g. changes in family constellations), constraints (e.g. the loss of the main source of income), consequences (e.g. children cannot attend school anymore) and reflexive structures (e.g. asking for help from “all parts of the world” with referral to the researcher’s role in the research) (cf. Gibbs & Taylor 2010). Consequently, these groupings helped to establish a structure and to organize the findings in an ordered manner.
3.4.2 Calculation of the Level of Saturation
The level of saturation was used as the indicator for the completeness of the information that was possible to be gathered at that particular point in time with the sample, i.e. the interview partners that were available.
Data saturation is a rather vague concept when trying to ensure high levels of validity and reliability. In the theoretical literature, many definitions are given of the amount of
35 data that is required to reach data saturation. In grounded theory studies, “Creswell recommends at least 20 to 30 interviewees. Denzin and Lincoln recommend 30 to 50 interviews. Morse recommends 20 to 30 interviewees with 2 to 3 interviews per person” (Marshall et al. 2013, p. 13) in order to reach data saturation. Referring to Guest, Bunce, and Johnson (2006), Marshall et al. (2013) present a way of statistically measuring and identifying the level of saturation. Using the coding procedures, presented by Glaser and Strauss (1967), they calculated Cronbach’s Alpha to measure the reliability of code frequency. With this value, the researchers could identify after how many interviews data saturation was reached.
The calculation of Cronbach’s Alpha is often used in social sciences in order to discern how reliable the data that was gathered from a sample is. However, for the purpose of an explanatory study, the precise definition of the reliability is neither necessarily needed, nor very useful.
As stated earlier, an exploratory study starts “only with a question and perhaps a basic proposition” (De Vaus 2001, p. 223), in order to be able to explain a certain phenomenon in more detail once the study is completed. Hence, reliability plays a role of course, but it is not the main concern when conducting an explanatory study. It is rather a constant openness for additional information that characterizes the explanatory approach. The additional information can be retrieved by means of participant observation for example, which supports the process of generating new knowledge.
In order to ensure that a minimum amount of data was gathered however, so that any viable conclusion can be formulated at all, a modified way of statistically measuring the level of saturation was applied for this research. A total number of 104 codes was identified throughout the iterative process of coding the 11 individual interviews that were conducted with the affected women. 91.2 percent of all the codes were identified after six interviews. Five additional interviews were held in order to avoid missing out important information.
Consequently, the level of data saturation for the available sample of participants in that particular point in time was presumably reached. This is shown by the calculation
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(Annex D) and it also matches the personal impression that the researchers gained when they conducted the interviews in the field.
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Section 2 – Findings and Analysis
4 Literature Review: From the General to the Specific This chapter aims at presenting the concepts that were discussed in the selected literature. Starting with a rather general overview about oil and its influence on a population’s wealth, the sub-chapters present the various implications the oil find has for the Ugandan governance and the country’s international relations. Besides, it discusses specific social issues, such as the need for information as a tool to prevent conflict from arising and environmental and land issues. Following this deductive approach, the chapter ends with the facts that were presented in the literature about forced migration and the role of women in particular.
In order to gain an overview that is as complete, as possible, it is important to point out that none of these topics – especially when it comes to rather vague notions of social issues, environmental problems and the role of women – can stand alone. The thematic boundaries are blurry and overlapping. Keeping the example of social issues, environmental problems and the role of women, it is obvious that the thematic domains are strongly interlinked, for example when referring to topics such as food security, gender-determined role models and the need for intact ecosystem services.
4.1 Regional focus: Western Uganda
Like earlier discussed, agriculture used to be the backbone of the Ugandan economy. Although a shift is recognizable towards other economic sectors (e.g. the service sector) that develop as main drivers for the economy, especially in urban areas, agriculture still plays an important role as a source of income and as a means for survival for many people in the rural areas of the country (cf. Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2014).
“Uganda has favourable climate and fertile soils, which are two basic attributes that determine its agricultural potential” (UNDP Uganda 2007, p. 19). The equatorial
38 climate, which is characterized by high temperatures throughout the entire year (25° - 30° Celsius on average) and frequent rainfall, is moderated by the countries altitude, as “most of the country lies on the plateau that is 900-1000m above sea level” (ibid.). Besides the regularly high levels of humidity, rainfall patterns vary during the year. Whereas the months between March and May, and between August and December show more rainfall (rain season), the remaining months of a year are observed to be comparably dry (see fig. 3).
Fig. 3, Rainfall patterns in Uganda (MubiruI et al., 2012)
Thanks to the favourable weather conditions, more than 75 percent of the Ugandan land across the whole country is cultivatable. According to the World Bank (2012), “there are spatial differences in farm performance, but those differences are not very large, except when compared with the North. (…) The best performing region is the West, which is well equipped not only with good natural conditions but also with high
39 population density and developed infrastructure. Farmers select the most profitable crops and achieve higher yields, having good access to infrastructure”.
As shown in Table 2, the Western region exceeds the other Ugandan regions in growing finger millet, beans and bananas (“food type”). However, the production of these goods partly takes place in other regions.
Table 2, Production statistics of selected crops in Uganda, 2008/09 (Kaizzi, n.d.)
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Despite the agricultural yields in Western Uganda, it is important to mention that this not result in a comprehensive access to the market. According to Ssewanyana, Matovu and Twimukye (2011, p. 54), “only 50 percent of agricultural production in Uganda is sold on markets. With the exception of coffee farmers and farmers engaged in other tradables or niche markets (vanilla, fruit, tomatoes), most smallholders in Uganda are still engaged in subsistence farming”. Coffee is one of the major export goods that is grown and produced in Uganda. The types Robusta and Aarabica are grown in Uganda. “Robusta Coffee is grown in the low altitude areas of Central, Eastern, Western and South Eastern Uganda (…) while Arabica coffee is grown in the highland areas on the slopes of Mount Elgon in the East and Mt. Rwenzori and Mt. Muhabura in the South Western Region” (Uganda Coffee Development Authority 2012).
Furthermore, the rain-fed agricultural practices in Western Uganda make the crops subject to reliable rainfall patterns. Due to the global climatic change, rainfall patterns are changing are less predictable than they were in the past. This is already posing a challenge to conventional farming systems and will do even more in the future (cf. Caffrey et al. 2013).
Besides the agricultural activities, fishery plays an important role for economic activity and subsistence farming in Western Uganda, too. “Fisheries activities are mainly carried out in open water sources and provide an important source of livelihood for many people in Uganda” (Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2014, p. 44). Lake Victors is the biggest and most productive water body with regard to the contribution of the Ugandan fishery and it is directly followed by the fish catch obtained in Lake Albert (see fig. 4).
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Fig. 4, Proportion of fish catch by water body, 2013 (Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2014, p. 45)
Altogether, it is obvious that agriculture and fishery are crucial to the Western Ugandan population. The dependency on access to land and water appears to be fundamental, not only with regard to market access but much more with regard to food security. Changes in the distribution of land and a possibly diminishing access to land is thus very likely to confront the affected people with big challenges.
4.2 Context: The Abundance of Oil and the Means of Reducing Poverty
Altogether, Uganda belongs to the poorest countries in the world and at the same time, it has the fourth highest population growth in the world (Choudhury, Coca et al., 2012). Therefore, an additional positive shift of Uganda’s development and poverty reduction record by turning the oil drilling activities into a blessing, rather than a curse, might be an important step towards shaping the future of many generations.
The majority of global oil resources are extracted in areas of the Middle East (65 percent) followed by European and Eurasian countries (12 percent) and Africa. In 2012, the African oil resources contributed to the global amount of oil to a share of about 9.7 percent (de Kock & Sturman 2012, p. 8). In recent years, Uganda did not belong to the African oil producers, but in the foreseeable future, it will. For, as it stands now, Uganda will start to drill and export oil in a matter of years. According to Ruhanga and Manyindo (2010, p. 32), Uganda has “five potential hydrocarbon exploration areas (…):
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1. Hoima Basin; 2. L. Kyoga Basin; 3. L. Wamala Basin; 4. Kadam-Moroto Basin; 5. The Albertine Graben”.
As discussed by various authors, the fact that Uganda will start to produce oil, and enter the global market by selling it, can be considered as either a blessing or a curse. To a large extent, this is dependent on the way that the trade with the non-renewable resource will be organized. Referring to Harvey (2014), Uganda runs the risk to suffer from negative consequences as a result of the so-called resource curse. However, according to other sources, it cannot be denied that the oil find also comprises a lot of potential benefits for the Ugandan economy and its people. One of the biggest drivers for a success story in this context lies in the manner that the Ugandan government is not under time pressure in terms of commencing oil drilling activities. Insofar as the Ugandan government manages to make the best of the time, for example through an adequate expectation management, the chances for Uganda to benefit from its oil in various ways are considerably high (Shepherd 2013).
Uganda’s way towards a middle-income country
In recent years, Uganda developed remarkably from a major aid receiver to a country with impressive economic growth rates and relatively high levels of stability. “On the one hand, a mixture of elite commitment, pockets of bureaucratic excellence and external support has enabled impressive levels of economic growth, macroeconomic stability and social expenditure” (Golooba-Mutebi & Hickey 2013, p.3). However, the current state of governance in Uganda is “characterised by deepening levels of competitive clientelism, highly personalised forms of public bureaucracy, collusive state–business relations, and a ruling coalition” (ibid.) that tries to be widely inclusive in the lower social classes. This means that members of the rural poor population play an important role for the current structure of power distribution, although these people are not very likely to actively shape political decisions according to their individual needs and ideas. They rather play a role when being exploited for the purposes of political parties. Slightly different from that, the attitude presented towards higher
43 educated, urban parts of the Ugandan society is described as increasingly nepotistic. Eventually, these patterns might pose a challenge towards equal distribution concepts models and sustainable growth models.
However, countermeasures are taken on a continental level, as the Africa Mining Vision shows. Several African Heads of States ratified it in February 2009 following an African Union Summit. Among other goals, the Africa Mining Vision aims at fostering people’s understanding regarding mining issues as “not just (…) question[s] of improving mining regimes by making sure that tax revenues from mining are optimized and that the income is well spent – although that is clearly important. Rather it’s a question of integrating mining much better into development policies at local, national and regional levels.” (Africa Mining Vision 2009). Subsequently, it remains dubious however whether such an unbinding ratification by governmental representatives leads to a viable consequences in the end.
The Ugandan oil
Besides the economic, political and thereby social topics touched upon above, there is also a very practical component attached to the drilling of oil in Uganda: The crude oil that is available in the Lake Albert basin is of a very waxy nature. It comprises high levels of paraffin. This means that the crude oil has to be kept at a certain temperature once it is excavated in order to keep it liquid (Barkan 2011; Gelb & Majerowicz 2011). The waxy consistency of the oil further complicates the construction of pipelines and a refinery on top of the already challenging point of departure for the production of oil in Uganda, given the country’s particularly weak infrastructure (Choudhury, Coca et al. 2012; Gelb & Majerowicz 2011).
4.3 “Governing the resources well”
The current situation in Uganda is characterized by “enormous social and economic needs and lingering ethnic tensions” (African Development Bank 2009, p.2). With a focus on the Western Ugandan region in particular, the disadvantages that the kingdom
44 of Bunyoro had to face during the era of colonial rule and the rulings in favor of the Baganda are still evident nowadays (Kiiza, Bategeka & Ssewanyana et al. 2011; Barkan 2011; de Kock & Sturman 2012). Before colonialization, the Bunyoro kingdom was “the largest of Uganda’s kingdoms” (de Kock & Sturman 2012, p. 25). It was stronger than the Buganda kingdom and it “controlled virtually all the territory between Lake Victoria, Lake Edward, Lake Albert and parts of eastern DR Congo and northwestern Tanzania” (Kiiza, Bategeka & Ssewanyana et al. 2011, p. 5). Since the British colonizers had close ties with the kingdom of Buganda and favored it in political decisions, the influence of the Bunyoro people in the political realm declined. Due to the unequal distribution of power, rivalries arose between the different kingdoms that were repressed brutally by the British colonial troops and Buganda and “the alliance committed grave human rights abuses (such as the killing of about 2 million people) in Bunyoro” (ibid.). The current constitution recognizes the kingdoms as cultural organizations. On the one hand, this recognizes the existence and the historical importance of the kingdoms. On the other hand, however, the role as a cultural organization keeps the kingdoms from getting involved in politics. The kingdoms are thus “subservient to the state” (de Kock & Sturman 2012, p. 25) and “according to the Bunyoro elder, President Museveni continues to remind the kingdoms that if not for him, they would not have been reinstated” at all (ibid.). Nowadays, the Bunyoro kingdom consists of the four districts Hoima, Masindi, Buliisa and Kibale and has a “historical and cultural claim over these oil-rich lands” (Kiiza, Bategeka & Ssewanyana et al. 2011, p. 1). The fact that the Western Ugandan region, where the oil is located, belongs to the land of this kingdom, puts an additional challenge on the underlying conflict between the Ugandan state with the kingdoms of Bunyoro and Buganda, and for the kingdoms with each other. However, due to the intense experiences made with war during the recent decades in Uganda, the general morale of the Ugandan population is characterized by a certain kind of war-weariness. Eventually this war-weariness might result in a decreased likeliness for conflict to arise (Shepherd 2013).
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The patronage-based rule and the role of the military
Despite some positive assessments of the current situation in Uganda, many authors see a connection between current developments in Uganda and the phenomena observed in other oil producing states. According to de Kock and Sturman (2012) oil production activities are very often accompanied by a heavy militarization. In the highly militarized “petro-states”, the risk for conflict to arise once oil drilling has started, is very often rooted “in pre-existing tensions in society” (ibid., p.11). At least to some extent, this seems to apply to the current situation in Uganda, too.
Many authors describe an increasing militarization in Uganda that is visible in various situations (Global Witness 2010; Veit, Excell & Zomer 2011; Barkan 2011). Veit, Excell and Zomer (2011, p. 4) give as an example that “Uganda’s oil fields are protected by Special Forces under the command of Lt. Col. Muhoozi Kainerugaba”, who is the son of President Museveni and a special government permission is needed “to visit oil sites, even to speak to local authorities or local farmers (…) in the oil districts”. In parts, this corresponds with the experiences made during the field research for this study and it can be regarded as an indicator for an increasingly centralized decision-making structure within the Ugandan political sphere.
Furthermore, this sort of militarization is described as a personalized militarization that is progressively taking place in contemporary Uganda, for example with regard to the family ties between the President and a leading member of the military. This sort of personalized militarization can reinforce patterns of policing and controlling in social and political realms of Uganda.
In addition to that, the personal relationships between private security firms and the Ugandan President, and the interconnection between business and politics (Barkan 2011) appear noticeable. Altogether, the Ugandan governance structure undergoes a process of renewal, which can be described as a new “institutionalist prism” and a “re- design” of the political settlement, hence the structures of political power distribution in the way that they developed during recent years (Hickey et al. 2015a, p.1). However, some of the business-politics interconnections are nevertheless subject to discussions. In addition to the Ugandan military that serves as a protector in the oil exploitation area,
46 oil exploitation sites are surveilled by the private security firm Saracen, which is owned by the President’s brother (de Kock & Sturman 2012). Subsequently, policies like this are suspected to serve as a means to secure the maintenance of the presidential power (Lay & Minio-Paluello 2010).
Referring to benefits gained thanks to personal relationships, the high prevalence of corruption is emphasized by several authors (Choudhury, Coca et al. 2012; Barkan 2011; Gelb & Majerowicz 2011; Kiiza, Bategeka & Ssewanyana 2011) as the main obstacle towards democratic governance. In reference to a report published by Human Rights Watch, Barkan states that throughout the recent decades, elections in Uganda have possibly been free elections, but they were not fair (Barkan 2011). However, it is not entirely correct to assume that there is a lack of laws to efficiently control unofficial agreements and corruption. The Ugandan legislation has laws that serve as a means to fight corruption, but the great gap between the legal basis and the actual implementation of the rules is described as critical (Global Witness 2010; Choudhury, Coca et al. 2012). Subsequently, a situation like this clears the way for corruption. According to Gelb and Majerowicz (2011), the same applies for tax collection. Apparently, the legal basis for a viable tax collection exists, among the institutions however seems to be almost no fiscal oversight.
Besides the private and political networks that can secure the presidential power maintenance, the President’s close ties with the Ugandan military are remarkable. The Ugandan military is regarded as a strong military that functions as a steady support to the Ugandan government (de Kock & Sturman 2012).
Land regulations and presidential power
Altogether, many authors describe tendencies of the once “constitutional government that [continuously] shifts towards a patronage-based, personal rule” (Shepherd 2013, p.8, Hickey et al. 2015a). The President’s increasing exertion of influence in all spheres of Ugandan politics is becoming visible in the increasing militarization of the country.
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Also the new land regulation that started in 2010 and that led to the creation of new districts, of which Buliisa is one, resulted in a weakening of the local governments (Gelb & Majerowicz 2011). This furthermore resulted in an apparent erosion of the few pockets of bureaucratic excellence in public service terms” (Golooba-Mutebi & Hickey 2013, p.33) and decreasing incentives for effective institutions to develop.
The newly created role of the Resident district commissioners (RDCs) each responsible for one district, is officially supposed to bring politics closer to the people and to make services more available to people in rural areas. However, Barkan describes the function of the RDCs as the epitome of “the eyes and the ears of the government” (Barkan 2011, p.8), thereby hinting at the policing function that these the RDCs fulfill. They have been appointed to their functions but were not democratically elected. From a tactical perspective, Museveni seems to forge direct relationships with the rural poor, who can play an important role when it comes to their votes during elections. Thereby, he “makes it difficult for his ethno-regional barons to develop independent constituencies beyond his influence that might interfere with his ability to mediate directly with voters” (Golooba-Mutebi & Hickey 2013, p.13), which can be interpreted as yet another attempt to maintain power.
Democracy versus semi-authoritarianism
According to the analyses of some researchers, a separation of powers would actually be crucial for the Ugandan government in order to be able to govern the country democratically (Choudhury, Coca et al.2012). The same applies to the implementation of a functioning oversight management, especially for taxation (Shepherd 2013). Altogether, these recommendations hint at a major point stated by several authors: the lack of a strict division of power in addition to the malfunctioning oversight mechanisms, suggest that Uganda is actually not a democratic country (Shepherd 2013; Barkan 2011). Instead, the political settlement of Uganda “can be defined as a dominant party/dominant leader settlement” (Golooba-Mutebi & Hickey 2013, p.20), which will subsequently determine the way that in that the oil resources are governed.
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Following the same line of reasoning, Ross Harvey calls the Ugandan state system a “semi-authoritarian” one (Harvey 2014, p.13). However, Harvey also sets Uganda in comparison to Ghana and notes that the semi-authoritarian system does not necessarily have to be an indicator for bad management of the oil resources. Referring to the governance indicators that are regularly calculated and presented by the World Bank, Ghana is a democratic country, whereas Uganda is not. Claiming that Ghana’s management of the oil resources does not work without a lot of malfunctioning, there is a chance for Uganda to do better than this, inter alia due to its well-working pockets of effectiveness, which means that there are public organizations that provide “public services relatively effectively despite operating in an environment in which public service delivery is the exception rather than the norm” (Roll 2011, p.2). Of course, the existence of pockets of effectiveness is bound to the level of hostility of the whole context and to the ineffectiveness of other organizations, which sets the threshold rather low for an effective organization to pass it (cf. ibid).
Hickey et al. (2015b) also follow a rather optimistic reasoning by recalling how the negotiations between private sector oil companies and the Ugandan government went: “They (Government of Uganda) said that they were not going to do any further oil licensing without getting things in place first (…) that was a very brave statement and it has been followed-up politically” (ibid., p.10).
Nevertheless, moving away from democratic core values can influence the traditionally close ties between the governments of Uganda and the United States of America. Although they share common goals in fighting terrorism in Somalia, Uganda’s decreasing credibility as a democratic government might have an influence on the relations (cf. Hickey 2011), which in turn opens the question for the role of China in Uganda’s process of development, especially since a Chinese oil company is operating in the area in Western Uganda, too.
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4.4 Economic Perspectives
Agriculture still plays an important role for Uganda’s economy and the main exports are “coffee, tobacco and cotton, while most farming products, such as maize, are consumed locally” (Modise 2010, p.2). However, Hausmann et al. (2014) emphasizes the need for Uganda’s economy to diversify. According to Hausmann, “the agricultural sector alone cannot address Uganda’s transition” (Hausmann et al. 2014, no pagination). In fact, Uganda’s economy does not solely depend on agriculture anymore (Choudhury, Coca et al., 2012), but nowadays, the service sector is the biggest income- generating sector to the national economy.
The Ugandan economy is becoming “increasingly dependent on imports, which are also of a more technical nature and of higher value (e.g. vehicles, cement) than its exports (e.g. agricultural products, and especially coffee, contribute 46 per cent of export earnings)” (Golooba-Mutebi & Hickey 2013, p.7). Hereby, the dependency on imports and the increasingly close ties between China and Uganda might stand for a major change in Uganda’s economic development policy.
Defining agriculture and the strong service sector as the major sources of income to many people, the income opportunities that could arise due to the oil drilling could positively contribute to the strong need of the Ugandan economy to diversify (Henstridge & Page 2010). The diversification is regarded to be especially important in order to avoid the phenomenon of the ‘Dutch Disease’ from hitting the Ugandan economy.
Increasing levels of complexity
In addition to the need for diversification, Hausmann points out that the complexity of the Ugandan economy needs to be increased, too (2014, no pagination). The production of agro-based commodities does not necessarily require sophisticated technologies or labor skills and therefore, these types of goods do not lead to a highly complex economy. In the Ugandan case, food processing is an important economic branch of the
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Western region of the country but for the earlier named reasons, it has not been the driver towards a more diverse market yet.
Nevertheless, there is, of course, potential for the Ugandan agricultural economy to increase its output and productivity, which would result in a higher level of complexity. A mechanized production process could eventually increase the agricultural output and productivity. This would in turn very likely lead to a lower demand for labor because the more a production process can be completed by machines, the less labor is needed. In the ideal case and under the circumstances of a diversified market, the lower demand for labor in agriculture would be balanced with the demand for labor in other areas. In reality this remains, however a challenging situation.
Altogether, there is a strong need for the Ugandan economy to transform into a strong and sustainable economy that is more complex and shows higher levels of diversification. Besides many other reasons, this is important because the Ugandan oil reserves will most likely not last for more than 20 years, or at maximum for 25 years (Ruhanga & Manyindo 2010; Choudhury, Coca et al. 2012). In comparison to other global oil finds, this is a rather short time and it shows, once more, the importance of good governance and a high capacity of resource management in this setting.
The role of foreign aid
Once the Ugandan government manages to meet the earlier mentioned economic prerequisites, the country could decrease its dependency on foreign aid, as it is expected that the government revenues will approximately double once oil drillings start (Choudhury, Coca et al. 2012).
The distribution of foreign aid is mostly conditioned by the demands of the donor states and organizations with regard to (from the donor’s perspective) desirable, hence democratic directions in political decision making. Although it is debatable whether these so-called good governance claims are suited for sustainable and fundamental developments in a country’s political landscape, they put an emphasis on respecting the
51 human rights and thereby strengthening the position of women within a society (cf. Santiso 2001). With regard to the topic of this research, the role of foreign aid and its interconnectedness with good governance claims plays an important role and has been mentioned frequently in the relevant literature.
So far, international aid contributes to Uganda’s economy to a significant extent (Schwarte 2008; Global Witness 2010). It supports financial stability, but there are also critical voices about the undesired effects it produces. Barkan (2011) and Gelb and Majerowicz (2011) state that the continuous influx of foreign aid does not incentivize the Ugandan tax system to function well. Besides, the African Development Bank (ADB) remarks that the “public wants to see an end to donor dependence” (2009, p.4). Also the Ugandan President has been cited with his positive notions about a soon end of donor dependency (Barkan 2011; Gelb & Majerowicz 2011). Subsequently, the ADB has emphasized the need for a paradigm shift from a major focus on poverty reduction through aid, towards economic growth policies that target Uganda as a modern middle- income country soon that neither depends on external financial aid, nor has to abide to the demands of donors with regard to national policy making, for example in the sense of good governance claims.
Seemingly influenced by “East Asian miracles”, Uganda’s National Development Plan envisions Uganda as a middle-income country by 2017 (Hickey 2011, p.2). However, while there is a discussion about a quick end to foreign aid, it actually appears uncertain as to whether the influx of foreign aid will really end so soon. On the one hand, Choudhury, Coca et al. (2012, p.16) state that “donor aid will come to an end once drilling is started”. On the other hand, Kiiza, Bategeka et al. (2011) remark that despite all changes in the Ugandan economy, aid will most likely not be stopped immediately. Assuming that donor aid will continue to be granted for the time being, Global Witness (2010) even encourages the donors to remain in a proactive role and to increasingly demand responsible action of the aid receivers in reference to the management of the oil resources.
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Globalisation as the ‘necessary evil’
While, many scientists opt for diversification and high levels of complexity as the two main ingredients for the effective functioning of the Ugandan economy, there are, of course, many counter perspectives to this, as well. According to Mkandawire (2008, no pagination), in Africa “globalisation has clearly been shaped by policy and by the requirement to open up markets - the price paid for association with organisations such as World Trade Organisation. Globalisation has been enforced through the threat of marginalisation - the threat of being left behind.” This notion shows that the conceptualization of a wider access to the global market for African states as the major tool for development, is not necessarily born out of own convictions by the African state leaders themselves. It is rather the force that is imposed on African countries by certain organizations that does not leave any scope for choice to the African states other than to adhere to the norms and values that are imposed on them.
4.5 Social Constraints: Information and Participation as Determinants of Vulnerability
According to de Kock and Sturman (2012, p.23), the societal nexus “is the network of people and institutions that, if taken together as a whole, constitute a social environment within which extractive industries and the state operates”. The state of this social nexus, and therewith its history, its collective memory, but also its ethnicity and economic status, can have a major influence on the course of the oil extraction and its consequences for the social realm in a country.
Urban-rural disparities
In the Ugandan case, the oil find is located in a rural area close the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to a case study conducted by de Kock and
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Sturman (2012), the rural population in the oil excavation area complains that they do not benefit from the oil at all, but they only suffer from it. In addition, affected people remarked that there are a lot of rumors circulating about displacement, which creates a lot of uncertainty and fear among the people (ibid.).
Within Ugandan society, there is an increasing disparity between the rural people and the urban population (Global Witness 2010). Referring to Schwarte (2008), it is the rural population in many cases that suffers from policy changes and, unfortunately, it is also the rural population that is least represented in decision-making bodies. Following a similar line of reasoning, Christiaensen, Demery & Paternostro et al. (2004, no pagination) state that it is especially households that already possess greater economic opportunity and resources, “such as land and access to high skilled workers – are better placed to profit from the new opportunities generated by liberalisation and deregulation” that might in the end reinforce existing patterns of inequality.
Also the employment that will be created by oil-drilling activities does not seem to offer many improvements for the rural population. For the complex technical process of oil excavation, a highly skilled workforce is needed (Lay & Minio-Paluello 2010), which the rural population can mostly not offer. As a consequence, the notion of jobs that are predominantly developing for foreigners can function as a basis for frustration and unrest (cf. Tumwesigye et al. 2012).
Seen from a statistical perspective, the measures undertaken to determine the Gini co- efficient show similar results. The Gini co-efficient is the measurement that indicates the distribution of income among households and individuals and how far this deviates from a perfectly equal distribution - increased sharply over the last two decades, “from 0.37 in 1992-3 to 0.43 in 2009-10” (Golooba-Mutebi & Hickey 2013, p.7).
Information and participation
One way to steer exchange and to decrease inequalities between the rural and the urban population could be to make sure that information about the oil find and its
54 consequences are made accessible to as many people, as possible. But although open communications with the population and the government would be needed (cf. de Kock & Sturman 2012, p.6), many authors complain about “the lack of effective communication and information” (Tumwesigye et al. 2012, p.28). Even stronger, some state that information is actively withheld from the communities (de Kock & Sturman 2012, p.22).
According to Barkan (2011), information is withheld and people enquiring for it are being threatened. Subsequently, the author mentions the prevalence of Human Rights violations against citizens in order to actively keep them from accessing information (ibid., p.10). Schwarte (2008) reports that journalists have been threatened when they tried to access information and NGOs faced similar problems (cf. ibid., p. 9 et seq.). Furthermore, it is described as very difficult to get access to information at all, as the attitude shown by civil servants who carry information is characterized by a lack of responsiveness and secrecy (cf. Schwarte 2008, p. 9; Lay & Minio-Paluello 2010, p.28). In addition to that, Tumwesigye et al. (2012, p.27) describe high levels of secrecy as prevalent among companies as well.
When referring to journalists, NGO’s, civil servants and private sector actors, the role of the scientific community has to be emphasized too. Many researchers agree that so far, there is a lack of really informative and high quality research covering the various topics that are connected to the oil find in Uganda (cf. Schwarte 2008, p.10; Minio- Paluello 2012, no pagination; Tumwesigye et al. 2012, p.48; Choudhury, Coca et al. 2012, p. XV). Ruhanga and Manyindo (2010, p.53) argue that there is a strong need for legislators “to improve the research capacity of the legislature”. The two authors give recommendations specifically directed to legislators, hence they argue that an enhanced research capacity will allow the legislators “to identify and address the gaps in the existing policy, and legal and institutional frameworks for natural resource management in Uganda” (ibid.). Seen the fact that legal, institutional and policy frameworks are not determined exclusively by legislators, the recommendation to improve the research capacity of the legislature is however relevant to all stakeholders.
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The access to information and the framing of security
There are several reasons for governments to curtail access to information. One official reason for this is the need to uphold a certain level of security, both nationally and locally. However, the main problem with information that is structurally kept away from the population is that this is very likely to generate “tensions such as competition among local people for access to employment opportunities” that are even “exacerbated by reportedly opaque company practices on hiring and firing casual staff (Tumwesigye et al. 2012, p.28). Uncertainty and fear create rumors and this is likely to reinforce the tensions among different groups of the population (Schwarte 2008; Choudhury, Coca et al. 2012; Shepherd 2013).
In general, an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty is counterproductive to a vibrant civil society and subsequently, “only a well-informed public aware of its rights to participate can truly help decision makers make the ‘right’ choices” (Schwarte 2008, p.4). Therefore, the use of confidentiality clauses in order to protect official documents and make them inaccessible to the public, are strongly discouraged (cf. Tumusiime and Banfield 2011, p. 11) because it is transparency that fosters social cohesion (cf. Shepherd 2013; Barkan 2011). Therefore, de Kock and Sturman (2012) claim the need for a participatory approach when it comes to decisions that directly affect (parts of) the population.
Altogether, it is mentioned by many that the oil find in Uganda poses several challenges towards the country’s sociopolitical sphere. According to Tumwesigye et al. (2012), the political marginalization of the rural population combined with uncertainty about displacement and fear, can function as a breeding ground for conflict. However, the Ugandan population that currently lives in oil producing areas has recent memories of war and this is why they have “no social appetite” (de Kock & Sturman 2012, p.22) for conflict. Furthermore, at least one of the three oil companies that are engaged in oil drilling activities in the Lake Albert basin (Tullow Oil) is appraised for its “seriousness about managing its social and environmental footprint in the interests of peace and development” (Tumwesigye et al. 2012, p.26) and therefore, the signs do not all point to conflict, although there are certainly tensions visible among the Ugandan population.
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4.6 Environmental Determinants of Vulnerability
As described in previous chapters, the Ugandan oil find means that as well as opportunities, challenges may face the social sphere, the governance and the economic sector of the country. In addition, the envisioned oil drilling activities in the Lake Albert basin create massive challenges for the environment, which in the end affects human security. The biodiversity that is endangered by oil drilling activities is essential for many of the people living in the Lake Albert basin and at the shores of the lake (de Kock & Sturman 2012; Minio-Paluello 2012; Tumusiime & Banfield 2011).
Water as a necessity for life
According to the analyses of some authors, the use of water resources and the access to the water reservoir posed by Lake Albert needs to be taken into account (Tumwesigye, Twebaze et al. 2012). This is important, because “18.7 percent of the national fish catch” (ibid., p.25) is provided by the Albertine region. Hence, a functioning biodiversity in Lake Albert is important in order to keep the ecosystem intact, which in the end also supports an important branch of the economy.
Preparing for the case of emergency
The case study conducted by de Kock and Sturman (2012) documents that the local population in the affected area does not show an in-depth understanding of the opportunities and challenges that the oil find means to them. Notwithstanding, their testimony suggests that they are clearly afraid of an oil spill. As experiences from other oil excavating countries in the world show, this fear is quite reasonable. Many authors therefore criticize that there is no emergency plan for the contingency of an oil spill or something similar happening in the course of oil exploitation in Western Uganda (Lay & Minio-Paluello 2010; Tumusiime & Banfield 2011; Choudhury, Coca et al. 2012).
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Gas flaring as a harmful practice
Furthermore, the analyses of Lay & Minio-Paluelleo (2010) and Choudhury, Coca et al. (2012) recommend that gas flaring, the practice that burns off gases that develops as a by-product during the process of refining oil, should be prohibited, because it is known for its negative consequences for humans and the environment.
Weighing the odds
As an addition to the discussion about the environmental needs that have to be considered during oil drilling activities in the Lake Albert basin, it has to be mentioned that some authors scrutinize the use of the envisioned oil drilling in general. According to Connor et al. (2007), oil is a non-renewable resource that the global economy is built upon. In various ways, it is the African continent that is suffering now already from the negative consequences of the production and the consumption of oil. By referring to these negative consequences, Choudhury, Coca et al. (2012) demand a critical appraisal of the benefits that are actually to be expected in comparison to the damages that oil drilling would likely cause. Referring to the financial benefits that can be gained through the means of tourism in the unique natural environment of the Lake Albert basin, the authors advocate the use of so-called “no-drill scenarios” (ibid., p.64). These no-drill scenarios would consist of a comparison between the consequences of the major intervention into nature for the sake of oil drilling, in proportion to the expected benefit. Especially in the areas with only minor oil wells, this would then raise the question for the actual profitability of oil excavation.
4.7 Land Issues
Like in many other cultures, land is in Uganda a critical topic, both regarding the emotional value that is attached to it by its owners, and its political meaning, for
58 example when it suddenly changes its value since oil has been discovered in the sub- layers of particular pieces of land (de Kock & Sturman 2012; Barnabas, Jahn & Cody. 2012). Besides the emotional and political value of land, it also provides the livelihood for many people in the rural areas since generations (de Kock & Sturman 2012).
Land ownership and decentralization
However, as “oil and land resources are inseparable and yet ownership in relation to land is limited in circumstances of public interests”, the inhabitants of certain areas of land can turn out to be very vulnerable (Barnabas 2012). In the case of Western Ugandan land governance, this vulnerability has seemingly been reinforced by means of decentralization politics, which has led to the creation of various new districts throughout recent years and which has subsequently resulted in a considerable weakening of local governance structures (Barnabas, Jahn & Cody 2012). Like earlier described, the influence of the traditional kingdoms has been legally restricted anyway. Furthermore, the creation of new districts weakened the influence of the local chairmen who represent the concerns of the villagers. Village representatives have less influence, since on a more decentralized district level, a more powerful leadership structure has been invented that deals with a decreased number of villages. According to the researchers affiliated with the Refugee Law Project at Uganda’s Makerere University, this eventually paved the way for land grabbing that has been witnessed during the last years in the affected areas, inter alia due to the fact that the coalitional power of villages has been curtailed.
Types of compensation for the loss of land
Despite the connection between decentralization politics and land grabbing, the “absence/inadequacy of existing legal frameworks” (Barnabas, Jahn & Cody. 2012, p.6)
59 with regard to the appropriate governance of big land transactions, is addressed as a pressing issue in the Ugandan context in general. Therefore, Choudhury, Coca et al. (2012) argue for the need of norms that regulate compensation payments in the case of conflicting interests between the (local) population, governmental, and private sector actors.
One way to handle the need for compensation payments to the affected population is presented by Gelb and Majerowicz (2011). The authors suggest cash transfers to the citizens of Uganda as a possible way to compensate the citizens and to let them participate directly in the profits gained through the trade with oil. In their statement for cash transfers, the authors do however not clarify whether these cash transfers are supposed to be offered to all Ugandan citizens equally, or only to the ones directly affected by the oil exploitation. Furthermore, the authors do not elaborate on the practicalities connected to such kind of cash transfers and the predominant risk for a phenomenon, like the Dutch disease, to occur. The authors’ argument mainly derives from the notion that “no-one challenges the decision of the people of Norway to delegate the management of its oil resources to their government, for the purpose of servicing future public pension obligations. But the situation looks somewhat different from the perspective of a country like Equatorial Guinea or (…) Libya” (ibid., p. 19). The status quo in Uganda is referred to as “somewhere in between these extremes” (ibid., p. 20). According to the authors, natural resources should be acknowledged as the common property of private citizens, rather than as a public resource. Thus, the conceptualization of cash transfer to citizens appears to be an alternative to the actual mode of compensations that are distributed only to some of the affected people. Subsequently, the authors conclude that at present, “it seems unlikely that those in power would seriously consider such an option” (ibid., p. 15).
Clarifying the ownership structure
As stated at the beginning of this section, land is a valuable asset for the people of Uganda. However, when discussing the shortcomings of the Ugandan legislation that
60 eventually enables land grabbing to take place, it is important to mention that there is a broad recognition of the fact that land grabbing is taking place at the moment in Uganda. Furthermore, it is accepted that land grabbing has negative implications for the affected populations. Choudhury, Coca et al. (2012) also point out that it is particularly worrisome that the struggle for land is very tense already now, when oil drilling has not even started yet and the refinery, for example, is not even constructed yet. Nevertheless, in order to create an overview that is as comprehensive as possible, it is important to mention that there are also voices that contest the prevalence and the nature of land grabbing in Western Uganda, as shown in the publication by Kiiza, Bategeka & Ssewanyana et al. 2011:
“In a technical field, such as oil exploration, the ‘popular’ cum journalistic views associated with a laissez-faire strategy are largely inaccurate (as in the claim by the Ugandan press that oil discovery in Hoima has resulted in ‘land grabbing’ by top army generals). This inaccuracy is largely attributed to the weak flow of information from government to the citizens; from technocrats to politicians; and from knowledgeable civil servants (who are, by tradition ‘tight-lipped’) to the journalists.”
Regardless of whether and in which way land grabbing is taking place in the Albertine Graben, one possible solution for more clarity is presented by Choudhury, Coca et al. (2012). As one of the conclusions to their works, the authors urge for a new regulation of land ownership in Uganda as a means to clarify assets and liabilities surrounding the ownership of land.
4.8 Forced Migration
Seen from a historical perspective, “East Africa has a long history of labour migration between and within countries to plantations (cotton and coffee in Uganda), mines (DRC and Uganda) and with the seasons (pastoralist communities in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya)” (Black, Hilker & Pooley 2004, p.6). Nowadays, as well as in earlier times, labour migration mainly served the purpose of increasing the livelihood security of families by splitting them up to different locations. This was especially evident in the
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1970’s, when “decreasing agricultural incomes across East Africa (…) led to a diversification of livelihood sources” (ibid., p.11). Consequently, migration was not at all connected to poverty or the endangerment of the livelihood, instead it was referred to as a means to secure the livelihood of people.
Migrating involuntarily
The kind of migration that is currently observed in Western Uganda and also reported by several authors shows very different patterns from the migration that was successfully undertaken by families in order to secure and improve their livelihood. The sort of migration that is currently taking place in Western Uganda rather shows that migration is actually the only viable alternative for some of the affected people. This kind of migration fulfills the characteristics of an involuntary migration, hereby suggesting an understanding of migration that is in accordance with a continuum model.
Fleeing to camps
In many places, where forced migration takes place, temporary and informal settlements arise and serve as an emergency solution to the ones who had to flee their homes for various reasons. In some cases these camps were designed as temporary shelters in the first place, but end up as being not so temporary, as they do not seem to dissolve after a certain time (cf. Herz 2013; Hujale 2016).
As reported by Ssekika (2015) and the African Great Lakes Transboundary Observatory ENANGA (2015), informal camps developed in the Lake Albert basin, too. These camps serve as a very provisional substitution for the affected people’s homes and barely fulfill the basic necessities for survival. In Bugambe for example, which is a sub- county of Hoima, the camp called Rwamutonga is mentioned by the authors.
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Although the inhabitants of these camps are refugees in the sense that they had to flee from a dangerous situation, the camps are not considered as refugee camps in the actual sense. The migrants who have to move away from the Western Ugandan oil exploitation area are not under the mandate of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and therefore, they are not officially recognized as refugees. Nevertheless, referring to the people who are staying in those camps, it can be assumed that the provisional setting they are living in, is not very likely to contribute to functioning social routines that come close to an everyday life, but rather to the opposite. This is explained by Black (cited in Barnes 2002, no pagination), who states that refugee camps are “a breeding ground for diseases and leading to thousands of deaths”. Social regulations and social coherence are very difficult to realize in these types of camps and referring to experiences in other refugee camps, Black (ibid.) quotes Kaiser by stating that in severe emergency situations, as they can be found in a refugee camp, even participatory approaches are expected to be counterproductive.
Altogether, the stay in an informal settlement can disrupt the daily routines of the affected people. People stay in a camp because they face an emergency situation, which in many cases leads the affected people to become vulnerable towards influences from the outside in manifold ways. The very nature of a refugee camp is not known to be beneficial to its ‘inhabitants’, but unfortunately, it is rather known to “continue to harm refugees, especially children”, as Black (ibid.) states in reference to Harrell-Bond. One type of harm done to children is – in addition to food insecurity, lacking health care, lacking physical and emotional safety – the lack of schooling in camps, which subsequently generates many undesirable and long-lasting by-effects for the individuals, their families and society as a whole (Talbot 2007).
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4.9 The role of women
The role of women in the Ugandan society is determined by social rules, laws and practices. On the African level, “every (…) state has signed at least one international treaty providing for the human rights of women. But women often experience discrimination because of their gender. Practices such as genital mutilation, forced marriage and polygamy, along with the inability to access property and education prevent them from enjoying their rights” (Ssenyonjo 2007, no pagination)
Legal status and the perceived social reality
Referring to the situation in Uganda, a visible step was taken towards treating men and women as equally in 1986, when female members were accepted to the National Resistance council, which was then comparable to the government and when a certain number of seats were reserved for women exclusively (Golooba-Mutebi & Hickey 2013).
However, according to Amnesty International (2010), “violence against women and girls, including rape, domestic violence and forced and early marriages, remains widespread in many parts of Uganda despite the steps taken by government to address these abuses” (2011, p.5). Especially women living in war-torn areas are known to be particularly vulnerable to becoming victims of Human Rights violations, as rape, for example. The women’s defenselessness seems to be especially high in these areas, when they have been displaced and need to search for firewood in remote and, to them, unknown areas (cf. World Bank 2014, p.6).
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The gender gap in agricultural activity
Although levels of vulnerability are apparently high in Uganda, it is important to state that women actually play an important role in ensuring food security and nutrition for their families. In fact, women make out a large part of the agricultural labor force in Sub-Saharan Africa (cf. UN WOMEN 2015, p.V). However, this does not mean that men and women therefore have equal control of and access to financial or productive resources that would subsequently decrease the workload of the women and increase the productivity (cf. ibid.). Instead, there is a gap between access to, and control of, resources on the one hand, and the important role that women play for nutrition and food security on the other. This disjuncture is known as the gender gap in agricultural activity (cf. World Bank 2014). As a consequence, it is assumed that the efforts with regard to poverty reduction and increased (nutritional) outcomes generated through agricultural activity could be a much greater success if the gender gap were reduced (cf. UN WOMEN 2015). Consequently, an increased productivity could “make institutions more representative and improve development outcomes for the next generation” (World Bank 2014, p.2).
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO (2011) and McKenna (2014), the agricultural productivity gap applies to the situation in Uganda, as well. “Women are responsible for an estimated 90 percent of Uganda’s total food output, but they lack the resources and support necessary to effectively produce crops on a sustainable scale, whether for home consumption or for marketing and income generation” (McKenna 2014, p. 1). However, the conceptualization of the gender gap in agricultural productivity that needs to be overcome is a very general one and it might possibly serve the purpose when it comes to diversifying the Ugandan market and to increase its complexity. But a change in agricultural production patterns and gender roles presupposes a condition where the basic security needs of women and men are fulfilled, where people live up to a certain kind of health and where food security is guaranteed. In short, closing the gender gap in agricultural activity can only happen in a situation that is not determined by flight and expulsion, or by a daily struggle to meet the bare necessities for survival. People who live under the impact of development-induced migration might however be confronted with exactly this kind of daily struggle. Hence, although the discussion of a
65 gender gap in agricultural activity might be a relevant one for the Ugandan context in general and although it is frequently mentioned in the relevant literature, it appears to be far less relevant for women under the impact of development-induced migration.
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5 Findings of the field research During the field research, several individual interviews and focus group discussions were undertaken with the primary stakeholders, hence with the inhabitants of the affected regions and hereby, especially with women. Furthermore, interviews were conducted with secondary stakeholders, such as family members, non-governmental actors and private sectors, such as oil companies. The key stakeholders, meaning those individuals that can “devise, pass, and enforce laws and regulations” (The Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas, 2015, no pagination) were also contacted for interviews.
In addition, knowledge was gained through participant observation. The participant observation entailed the participation in the daily activities and routines of the population that is being studied. During this field research, this meant to visit common places for social gathering, like local restaurants and shops. In the rural places, these restaurants and shops were far more than places to consume and buy things, but they were locations where people met and where daily communications were held. Many of the restaurants had a television and it was switched on all day long. Not only the choice for or against certain kinds of broadcasters, but also the information delivered through the daily news gave interesting insights. The same applies to the selection of newspapers available at shops, their radio entertainment and the involvement in informal conversations. Furthermore, participant observation was preferred as a method to acquire knowledge in cases where it would have been ethically unjustifiable to interview secondary stakeholders, such as the women’s children for instance. Nevertheless, the insights gained through participant observation help to create a more complete picture of the social reality. The number of obviously undernourished children, for example, varied from village to village. In some places, almost all children seemed to be undernourished, whereas in other villages, children had a totally different appearance when it comes to nourishment, visible wounds, or physical development. In the formerly mentioned places, children showed typical characteristics like hunger edema, many visible wounds and malformations of the limbs. In the latter, the children showed far less of these characteristics and appeared to be even more lively.
These kinds of observations are, of course, only a small piece of what there is to observe. Nevertheless, they function as complementary information to all data that has
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been gathered in other ways. Discussing the impressions with the Ugandan colleagues furthermore helped to validate and thereby to triangulate the observations.
Altogether the oral accounts given by the participants of the research were crucial to all types of data collection and to the central aim of gathering new knowledge. In order to retrieve as much information as possible of the accounts that were given verbally, the most prominent findings were analyzed following the framework of a discourse analysis.
The discourses that are presented in the following sections are organized according to different argumentative strands that were given by the different actors who participated in the research.
5.1 Individual Interviews & Focus Group Discussions with the Affected Women
The interviews and focus group discussions with the affected women were held at various locations. Sometimes, interviews took place inside the houses of some of the participants, in other cases, they were held in the front of shops or on lively places. The flexibility in locations was of course determined by the informality that comes with the use of a snowball sampling technique and eventually, it helped to understand the variety of backgrounds that the affected people come from. While lively places were easily reachable for the researchers, homes located in “empty” villages and/or remote areas were rather challenging to find. Hereby, informal, oral exchange was crucial and under some circumstances, it could even take several hours to reach the destinations, while the whole journey could then also be seen as part of an investigative field trip.
Altogether, the situation for many of the affected women has been characterized by a certain degree of hardship since seismic measurements began in Hoima and Bullisa in 2006. In various ways the women who were interviewed described feelings of devastation, hopelessness and fear. Many of them literally said: “We are suffering”.
The women interviewed in villages in Hoima and Buliisa rank among the societal group typically designated as the rural poor. Their level of education ranged from no formal
68 education to the completion of secondary school. Many women could only roughly estimate their age. For example, one stated: “I had my first son in the year when Museveni became the president of Uganda and back then, I was maybe 20 or 25 years old”. Perhaps the woman was even younger when she gave birth to her son and therefore, such accounts make very vague inferences possible and so it is assumed that most of the women interviewed were approximately between 35 and 50 years old.
All of the women interviewed used to be engaged in farming or other activities on the informal labor market, such as brewing beer and baking and selling pancakes before they had to leave their homes. All of the women were affected by the envisioned oil exploitation in that they have had to leave their homes because of it or knew they would have to do so soon. In Buliisa their homes were located in areas where oil wells have been dug. In Hoima, houses had to make way for the construction of an oil refinery, an oil waste management plant and what has become known as the “oil road” connecting the district capital, Hoima, to the cities of Kayso and Tonya.
Following preliminary interviews, roughly two groups could be identified among the affected women: one group that had received financial compensation and/or had been resettled, and a second group of those still waiting for financial reimbursement and/or resettlement.
The households affected by the construction of the refinery were handled according to a Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) that defines compensation for those affected. The other projects (construction of the Kayso Tonya Road, oil waste management plant, pipelines and wells) fall under the responsibility of different actors, so matters of compensation are being handled in manifold ways and are yet difficult to assess in detail.
The majority of the women interviewed knew neither anything about the rules and regulations governing compensation nor about their rights concerning the loss of their and their families’ land. The overwhelming majority stated that their husbands made all decisions concerning the sort of compensation that their household would receive. One of the women said: “I trusted my husband and I believed what he said. I never wanted to know more, because I was dealing with other things”.
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Officially – at least in terms of compensation in line with the RAP – women were supposed to participate in the decision-making process. Despite this, the women said that it did not matter whether they were involved or not. In the cases in which the RAP was applied, affected people took part in a sensitization course that was intended to help them to wisely handle the large amount of money they would receive as compensation for their land. The women who participated in the course said that it sent contradictory messages and was not helpful to them. The women said that the messages were contradictory, because they were not consistent when it came to their right to participate in decisions for example. Whereas the overall message was apparently to state that women should be involved in decision making processes and that they should be present during the trainings, some of the trainers accepted the husbands signing the attendance lists in lieu of their wives, although the wives did not attend a single session of the training. Furthermore, the women said that the prices for fruits, such as mangos, that were presented in the trainings did not correspond to the prices that were usual and possible to be paid by their clients.
Of the total group of women interviewed, only two were in a situation, where either the woman herself, or her husband opted for resettlement in lieu of financial compensation. The first of the two women was living alone with her children even before she had to take that decision and so she decided it herself. The second woman said that her husband left her when she was not willing to accept any other way of compensation. Though not yet proven by statistical evidence, the data set shows that precisely those two women were those with the highest educational background. Apparently, however, people were not encouraged to choose this option. Instead, one of the two women said that she was threatened. She had been told that resettlement meant that she could be placed anywhere in the country, including being “taken to Karamoja” 1, which she would perceive as a downscaling in terms of social security.
1 Karamoja is a region in Northern Uganda and widely known as a socially deprived region.
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“When the money came, my husband left”
Eight of the women interviewed said that their marriages fell apart after their husbands received the monetary compensation and that in fact the husband left, “when the money came”. They said that their husbands took the entire amount of money that was supposed to serve as a means of financing an alternative house. Men began consuming alcohol and made expensive investments. Many of the women reported physical and verbal violence used by the husbands against their wives. One of the women said: “My husband told me that I was too old and that he wants another wife. He used a lot of bad language”. Within the sphere of unknown economic opportunities for the husbands, the marriages and wellbeing of the families were challenged as well. Many men decided to leave their families and move to urban areas. This did not destroy marriages per se, but it caused financial constraints, because the husbands very often claimed the whole amount of money for themselves and did not handle it responsibly. Consequently, this obstructed the payment of school fees for children and access to health care. In addition, many women spoke about food insecurity for them and their children resulting from the irregular availability of money for food and the inability to manage the labor-intensive harvest completely alone.
“We are still new in this place”
When husbands left their families, the wives were left behind, forcing them to cope with the loss of their homes by themselves. This involved moving to alternative places, entering new communities and making arrangements for new sources of income. The notion of one of the women, who said that she and her family were still new in the village was enriched by another woman who said: “I do not know the people here, I do not know if it is dangerous or safe for me and the children”. Besides, according the accounts by the women, the newly arranged sources of income posed higher risks compared to their former work. Previously, the women sold the vegetables from their gardens or earned money from cultivating close to their homes. They said that they
71 were part of a village structure that allowed them to generate their daily subsistence within a network that offered them security on all levels. Since the women no longer had the crops, their network of clients and thus the opportunity to work very close to their homes, some had to produce charcoal or cut trees and grass now. Such activities require that they work in remote areas, forcing them to walk long distances. Especially those producing charcoal have to do this at nighttime, as they have to wait for the charcoal for many hours and during day-time, they are occupied with keeping the household and caring for their children. Thus, in order to do these jobs, the women have to leave their children behind at night. The nightly walks and long hours they have to spend outside put them at high risk of becoming victims of rape. Since sexual abuse is a very private topic, the women did not overtly say whether they had to experience it themselves, nevertheless they said that they all know at least one or two women who became the victims of rape.
“I wouldn’t wait until the animals come and eat me and the kids up”
The two women who opted for resettlement instead of financial compensation also stated that they faced difficulties. Many of the people who had chosen financial compensation had received their payments and left, resulting in “empty villages” with only those remaining who awaited resettlement. During the period of this research, these villages were only hardly recognizable as villages and could only be identified as former villages, when interviewees showed the remnants of former house walls that in the meantime were overrun with grass. According to accounts given by the interviewees, it was not feasible anymore to live in these villages when more and more people left. Trade networks collapsed. Many houses were uninhabited, and the vegetation grew wild. Overgrown bushes and obstructed views meant a lack of security for those who stayed. The risk of burglary and villagers being attacked by animals increased drastically. Again, higher vulnerability to becoming a victim of rape was named as a specific risk for women. As a result, some told the interviewers that they left the areas without having received any compensation at all. “If I want to survive, I have to leave”, is what one woman said when she was asked about her motivation to migrate.
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Hence, the migration was regarded as an absolutely necessary step, because otherwise the level of security would have been lowered to such a degree that they would not have known how to cope with it anymore, since it would have resulted in starvation and the risk of dying. Consequently, the women stated that they were not actually evicted by force, but they were also not willing to describe their migration as voluntary.
5.1.1 “The oil” is to blame
The accounts given by the women were diverse. Altogether they each indicated limited agency. The conceptualization of limited agency refers to the five distinct types of freedoms, comprising political freedoms, the availability of economic facilities, social opportunities, a guaranteed transparency and a situation of protective security (O’Hearn 2009), which is based on the conceptualization provided by Sen that is discussed earlier. To the greatest extent, these freedoms are determined by the external side of vulnerability and have a major impact on the capability of individuals to help themselves, hence they influence an individual’s capacity to master, tolerate, or reduce external and internal demands and conflicts among them (cf. Lazarus & Folkman 1980). The lack of these freedoms is likely to result in diminished coping capabilities. Given the difficult circumstances, one cannot speak generally of lacking coping capabilities among the women interviewed. Faced with harsh situations and forced to put themselves at risk, the women nonetheless manage to secure their own and their children’s survival. They are able to meet the bare necessities and thus they show a certain amount of coping capability within the highly restricted frame that allows them to act at all.
When asked about the reasons for the wider complexity of problems and the long-term implications, the ability to imagine those appeared to be far more limited. On the one hand, this is very likely due to the fact that the women are desperate. They said that they are exhausted because of the hard physical work they had to do now. Cutting grass and producing charcoal is physically very demanding. Combining the hard physical labor with the lack of food, no access to health care and the mental distress with regard to the loss of social networks that used to offer security and identification patterns to the
73 women, many of them burst into tears during the interviews. It was apparent that they suffer from even harder lives they have to lead now.
Practically speaking, it did not seem to matter so much to them, why things are the way they are. In the first place, they had to meet the necessities of the daily life for themselves and their children. On the other hand, the constrained ability to imagine reasons for the complicated situation might also be due to the fact that the explanatory models applied by the women are limited to a discursive pattern that is reduced to the abundance of oil. All of those interviewed said that the reason for their current critical state was the oil resources. The concept given to the abundance of oil was iteratively produced and reproduced among the women who participated in the research. Hence, the perception of reality that evolved from this reinforced the notion that “the oil” is to blame for the highly complicated situation. The connotation given to “the oil” differed from location to location. The inhabitants, who lived in a village that had to give way for the construction of the Kayso-Tonya-road, defined the construction of the road as the direct consequence of the abundance of “the oil”. Therefore, the availability of oil is understood as the root of the current problems and not the way in which the government handles the situation, or the husbands who manage the resources. The inhabitants of a village that was destroyed because of the construction of the refinery saw the refinery as a direct effect of the abundance of oil. For the efforts of sense-giving and the attempts to establish truth, the inhabitants of that village conceptualized the link between refinery and oil, as in the sense that it is “the oil” that in the end robbed the inhabitants of their livelihood.
Very few participants blamed the government for not being helpful. Some also showed disappointment about the “white men” – whereby they were most likely referring to staff members of the oil companies, or field researchers who try to assess data about the social and economic processes, the people’s livelihoods et cetera – who came to the villages and did not make any positive change happen, but rather the opposite. Not a single woman formulated direct criticism towards the husbands who had embezzled the compensation money that was given to the family. Issues of gender equality or choice of partner were hardly ever mentioned. Although this adds an interesting perspective to the output of the interviews, the women’s reluctance to criticize their husbands overtly should not be misinterpreted as something like cowardliness among the women. The
74 relationship between the women and their husbands is a very private topic. Furthermore, it might even be a very contentious one and therefore it is obvious that they do not share too much of their personal opinion with a person that is barely familiar to them.
5.2 Focus Group Discussions
Roughly two groups of women could be identified among the studied population. The first group consisted of women who received financial compensation and/or had been resettled already. The second group consisted of women, who were still waiting for financial reimbursement and/or resettlement. The group discussion with the women who had already received a certain kind of compensation (either in monetary terms, or land by way of a substitute), took place in Buliisa, which is an own district just like Hoima, but is smaller than Hoima as well in reference to its geographical area, as to the total population.
The group discussions with the women who had not received any compensation so far, were held in Nyakasenene and Kabaale Parish, which both belong to Hoima. As Hoima is bigger than Buliisa, both in terms of total population and geographical area, it was regarded as useful to have at least two focus group discussions in Hoima to get an impression of the situation.
For a correct understanding of the composition of the groups, it is important to mention that the women who had officially been compensated but did actually not benefit from it, were nevertheless asked to participate in the group discussion with women who effectively received compensation, which means that their husbands did not leave them behind, or at least initially shared a certain amount of the compensation payment with their wives, mainly in commodities. Throughout the field research, it appeared to be a very common phenomenon that women mentioned that their husbands were the only ones to take care of the money and who decided to leave their families shortly after they received a payment. In fact, the wives of these husbands did not benefit from the compensation at all. Nevertheless, the decision to group them with those women who had effectively received compensation was taken, because it was assumed that this
75 would help the research to assess development-induced migration and compensation in the Albertine graben in as realistic a manner as possible.
5.2.1 Focus group discussion in Buliisa Women who were compensated, either financially and/or with land that was given to them
The women who participated in the focus group discussion in Buliisa said that they had received compensation for the land that they had to leave due to the construction of the road that connects Kayso and Tonya. The compensation received so far were financial payments, in this group discussion there was no woman who received land as a substitution for their former land.
The majority of the women (8 women out of 11) who participated in this focus group discussion had been left behind by their husbands at the point in time when the research took place. The reasons for this were diverse. Nevertheless, a certain pattern was recognizable. All of the women, who said that their husbands had left them, said that this happened directly after the first payments were received. Due to the division of responsibilities within their families, it was exclusively the husbands’ responsibility to take care of the received money and so had a lot of freedom to spend the money.
Some women reported that their husbands changed their behavior once they had some money available. Many men went away and got married to other women and also started to behave aggressively towards the wives and the children. The majority of the women did not stay with their husbands anymore, because the men used the money and left for urban areas. With the departure of their husbands, the women’s right to the land they were occupying expired. Thus, they were evicted and landless because the land was effectively used for something else, and furthermore, also because customary land regulations did not allow them to own land in the absence of their husbands.
The women living alone moved to other family members or managed to stay with other people of their community. Since they lost their land and could not benefit from the compensation that was paid, they had to look for alternative places in order to grow food and ensure food security for themselves and their children. However, many of the
76 women agreed that the alternative land that they were using now was not as valuable as the land they used to have. Land of less value was described as land that does not have soil that is as fertile, as the land the women used to inhabit. Eventually, this put an immense pressure on them to make sure that they and their families/children would have enough to eat. Furthermore, it risked and sometimes even ruined their source of income that has always been related to agricultural activities and thus highly depended on fertile soil.
Referring back to the division of tasks within their families, many of the women said that they were the ones who are responsible for all matters concerning the children. Therefore, the issue of food security was recognized as a major problem especially in reference to the wellbeing of their children. Furthermore, the loss of the source of income makes it especially hard to maintain the payment of school fees for the children. One of the interviewees said: “We are starving and we cannot send our children to school anymore. What about our children’s future? Are they supposed to be hungry for all their lives?”. Hereby the woman exemplified that the loss of land is a phenomenon with much many more severe consequences, than solely the absence of land.
The majority of women mentioned the expectations they had in the beginning. Some women explained that they were not concerned about the construction works in the first place. Referring to unknown sources, they said that they expected to earn a lot of money and to actually benefit from the construction works in their surroundings. Referring to the oil find as a whole, one of the women said: “We were positive about it. Some men said that we are very lucky people because we have oil”. When they realized that the opposite was the case, they were even more disappointed.
A very tense atmosphere arose when the women elaborated on the immense difficulties they had to cope with on a daily basis. Some women were struggling to find words for the pressure they felt and they started crying. One woman kept on begging for help. She said she would not mind where the help came from, or by whom it was offered, if only there comes a solution for all her problems. Another woman, who achieved wider recognition since she and her husband were interviewed by a national television broadcaster about their situation, said repeatedly that the couple was considering committing suicide, because their life did not feel as if it was worth living anymore. It
77 occurred several times that all women spoke at the same time. They apparently felt the need to share their thoughts.
Despite this tense atmosphere, there will still a few women who could find a good thing about the infrastructural change in their surroundings. They said that they were happy about the newly constructed hospital in their area.
5.2.2“We can’t stop them”
The setting of a focus group discussion organized for women only delivered some interesting results in Buliisa. The discussion took about one hour and it was a peaceful atmosphere, although almost all women were very engaged in the discussion. Some of them seemingly enjoyed the opportunity to express their thoughts in a safe environment.
Besides many other findings, it was recognizable that many women literally and substantially said that they are subjected to someone else’s decisions and so they can only react upon certain things that happen to them. They barely have the chance to act themselves.
Here too the overwhelming majority of the women – ten out of eleven women who participated - were left behind by their husbands, they do not have land rights, official titles, or customary rights anymore and they depend on the help of others. This does, however, not result in stagnation. Instead, the women said that they fight for their survival and that of their children. Nevertheless, the idea and the concept of being subjected to someone else’s decisions was produced and repeatedly reproduced during the focus group discussion in Buliisa. Since the women “can’t stop them” anyway, their physical and social reality is currently shaped by massive infrastructural and pivotal social changes that forces them to adapt rapidly.
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5.2.2 Focus group discussions in Nyakasenene and Kabaale Parish (province Hoima) Women who did not receive any sort of compensation so far
The women, who participated in the focus group discussions in Nyakasene and Kabaale Parish had not received any compensation so far and the majority of the women who participated in the research, had been left behind by their husbands. They mentioned very similarly how they struggled to meet the bare necessities of survival on a daily basis. The women said that they were promised financial compensation for the land they were living on. They realized however that they would not receive the money in cash and that they would have to make an effort to receive it, such as opening a bank account to actually receive payments. Opening a bank account however was not an obvious thing for them to do. Rather they were supposed to be accompanied by their husbands and to have their permission for opening a bank account. One of the interviewees described that she had to leave very early in the morning in order to travel to the city centre, where one of the banks has a branch. She said: “It took us hours only to get there and we had to pay. It was very difficult to understand what I should do. Pictures were taken of me and my husband”. However, although they did everything that was asked of them, they did not receive anything. Many of the women could not flawlessly identify any persons, or any actor in specific who would have been responsible for their payments and at the point in time when the research was undertaken, there was nothing left to the women but to wait.
The two women, who participated in the focus group discussions in Nyakasene and Kabaale Parish and who under certain circumstances opted for land as a means for compensation, instead of money, explained that no alternative land was offered to them in the first place. Once everyone else, who lived in their villages left, they had to find themselves an alternative place, as well, because the security situation would not allow them to stay alone in an empty village and wait until alternative land would be offered to them.
In very few cases, the women who were still waiting for a compensation to be received still stayed with their husbands. Nevertheless, the routine within their families was destructed due to the involuntary movement, since they had to worry about food security in the new place and also because they cannot take their children to school
79 anymore. The latter is the case, because the families either do not have enough money anymore to pay for school fees, or because all schools that were reachable for the children closed down.
The women also tried to organize money from elsewhere so that they could at least uphold a minimum of their daily routine. However, those attempts were not successful. Many women explained that they thought their financial constraints would be solved once they had a bank account. Firstly, they thought this would be the case because with a bank account, they would be able to receive a compensation payment, despite the fact that they have no land rights. Secondly, they thought that a bank account could enable them to borrow money in times of financial scarcity.
However, the women reported that the bank that let them open their accounts did not grant any credits since in the closer future, no income was to be expected on the accounts. Furthermore, whether empty or not, the accounts were in most of the cases not supposed to be owned by the women, but according the division of tasks within the families, by a male. Technically, there would have been the opportunity to share a bank account, so that the women would be co-signers. In reality however, this appeared to be unreachable for the women since complexity is perceived to be high and these kinds of regularities do not match very well with the life-reality of many of the affected people.
Besides financial issues, especially the women in Nyakasene mentioned the emotional value that the land has to them. They emphasized that they were born in this place and that they would feel uprooted if forced to leave it.
Similar to what the women in Buliisa said, also in Nyakasene and Kabaale Parish, the women’s expectations appeared to be very different from what turned out to be the case later. The women said that they were told that they, who are affected by the construction of the refinery, would be better off than the ones who are not affected by it at all.
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5.2.4 “We are stuck”
The accounts given by the women who participated in the focus group discussions in Nyakasene and Kabaale Parish were complementary to what the focus group discussions in Buliisa had shown as well as the findings of the individual interviews. Nevertheless, the situation in Nyakasene and Kabaale Parish appeared to be a bit more severe than what could be seen in Buliisa.
Like in Buliisa, the women of the two focus group discussions in Hoima were struggling to uphold their daily lives. They suffer from food insecurity and since neither they, nor their husbands received anything for compensation, they did not seem to see any opportunity at all. Even the short dawn of hope that came up when they were asked to open bank accounts resulted in a disappointment and did not lead towards any improvement, especially not for the women, since in many cases, they were not even allowed to open bank accounts without their husbands.
The specific idea of “being stuck” was very well recognizable among the women who participated in the focus group discussions in Nyakasene and Kabaale Parish. It was very obvious that physical and social realities were shaped by this notion. It is worrying enough that the physical reality is heavily influenced by the lack of food and thus far, the social reality seems to take shape notably by mental despair.
As a participant observer it was especially recognizable that the social atmosphere in Nyakasene was rather tense. The women were poorly dressed, children looked undernourished and had visible scars. Some houses in the village were inhabited, others not. A lot of waste was lying around and despite the early time of the day, many men were sitting together and drank high percentage alcohol out of little plastic bags, known as a very cheap kind of alcohol. At least from an observing perspective, there was hardly anyone working in a structured way. From the interaction with men in the village, it was evident that a rather negative attitude was held towards the whole idea of women participating in a research. An isolated discussion with only women participating was only possible after one of the inhabitants of the village, a Catholic priest, talked to all of them and convinced them that there is no reason for them to be worried.
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5.3 Interviews with non-governmental actors
The non-governmental organizations (NGOs) consulted for the research showed a high level of willingness to share information. The NGOs mainly offer counseling to the people affected by development-induced migration. Some organize multi-stakeholders forums that regularly convene actors from the governmental, non-governmental and private sectors to discuss the status quo in the affected regions.
Two of the actors showed some hesitation upon being approached for an interview. One interviewee preferred to remain anonymous and decided to mention his exact function within the organization only after the interview had ended.
Subsequently, the following organizations accepted the enquiry concerning this research and participated in an expert interview:
AFIEGO (Africa Institute for Energy Governance)
BIRUDO (Buliisa Initative for Rural Development Organisation)
Global Rights Alert Uganda
NAPE (National Association of Professional Environmentalists)
NAVODA (Navigators for Development Association)
The Refugee Law Project, Makerere University Uganda
Transparency International Uganda
“Evictions happen with force – with a lot of violence and force actually.”
All non-governmental actors reported that the development-induced migration in Hoima and Buliisa frequently takes place accompanied by the use of violence. Violence has reportedly been exercised by policemen and unidentifiable “strongmen” to evict people from their homes. Independently from one another, the NGOs reported the use of teargas by the police against civilians. Some evictions were reported to have taken
82 place at night. They came so unexpectedly that people had to flee immediately and leave all their belongings behind. Some people were injured, and houses were not only evacuated, but sometimes also burnt down. Especially Transparency International and NAVODA reported the existence of informal camps for the affected people and substantiated this by showing pictures and videos as a proof. These pictures showed many people on very limited space, who dwell in informal housings that were built of cloth and plastic pieces. These dwellings did not look like they would offer any shelter towards rain, sun or wind. Furthermore, they did not seem to provide any basic facilities for cooking and sanitation. The representatives of both organizations expressed their concern about the worrisome situation within the camps.
“Everyone who can runs away from the camps. The elderly, women and children often can’t.”
All NGOs interviewed agreed on one topic: The suffering that arises from development- induced migration disproportionally affects women, the elderly and children. Especially BIRUDO’s expert explained this is due to the fact that women have the least opportunity to flee and often have no choice but to stay behind. This was described to be the case in the villages where women were suddenly forced to move, and also in reference to the situation in the camps. The risk for women of becoming a victim of rape was described as virtually omnipresent under the circumstances of development- induced migration. This can be traumatic for all women and it is also another factor that increases the risk of teenage pregnancy.
“By some, we are treated as insulters, as saboteurs.”
Some NGOs reported that they experienced repression, citing instances of colleagues being arrested by the police. Especially the AFIEGO’s experts spoke of an ongoing
83 struggle to retain the license to act as an NGO. According to the organizations, such tension has increased over recent years.
The oil companies were often characterized as compliant actors who willingly entered into contact with the NGOs, for example by accepting the invitations of NGO’s for discussion rounds, as stated by NAVODA and BIRUDO. Some of the interviewees mentioned the companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs. These aspirations were viewed positively, though they couldn’t possibly replace the structures that formerly existed. The CSR programs offered by the oil companies were also described as being elitist and not able to support those who are really in need.
Nevertheless, the oil companies were mainly defined as nothing more than contractors of the government, which does not oblige them to care for the affected people. This is a perspective that was emphasized especially by BIRUDO. Since the oil companies are regarded to be contractors of the government, the questions concerning their willingness to connect with the NGOs were addressed, but only in a very general and short way, since this was not regarded as a key issue for the majority of the representatives of the NGOs.
5.3.1 “This is not only about governance, this is about morals.”
The accounts given by the NGOs enabled the researchers to approach the phenomenon of women’s vulnerability from a micro and macro-perspective. Firstly, the accounts of houses being burnt down, violence and the suffering in the camps – confirmed by photographs and videos shown as proof – provided very close insights about the gravity of the situation. In addition, the NGOs were also able to position the various actors on a broader scale whereby hardly any blame has been put on single actors. The NGO representatives avoided to blame anyone in specific. The reasons for this are probably diverse. Either they simple fear of repercussions and therefore prefer to display caution in their comments, or it might also be the case that the NGOs follow a kind of structuralist approach.
According to the structuralist school of thought, “all human activity and its products, even perception and thought itself, are constructed and not natural” (Childs & Fowler
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2006, p. 225). Transferring this to the attitude shown by the NGOs that participated in the research, it means that the construction of an offender, a single person, or an entity that is to blame for the challenges that arose, relies on a construct. There is no actor that can be identified as truly good, or truly bad. Human behavior is rather constructed as a part of the reality of a social system. Therefore, oil companies are not considered to be good, or bad, and so is not the government. However, this does not take away that the current circumstances in the Albertine Graben produces victims and therefore, the NGOs see it as their mandate to take the initiative for the victims of the ongoing developments. Consequently, NGOs held up communications with all actors and the approach presented by them, appeared as a very sober reflection that is mainly targeting at an overall result.
In reference to the disruption to family relations, the increasing number of girls dropping out of school and, in turn, the alarming cases of teenage pregnancy, the representative of NAPE concluded that it is not about governance or power, but that it all comes down to a quest for morals. This is in line with what many of the other actors stated. They said that they understand the oil companies as contractual partners, who do not necessarily have a social obligation. Besides, they do not perceive the government as a group of people that is per se bad, lazy or unskilled, but more an organizational entity that has to accomplish an assignment. Hence, the non-governmental actors create an ensemble of ideas that puts everyone at the responsibility to fulfill certain tasks they are assigned to fulfill. Following this line of reasoning, they do not blame any actor in specific, but it rather hints at systematic failures, for example with regard to structurally weak moral convictions.
Despite that rather levelheaded approach of the NGOs, many of the representatives interviewed described the repression they experienced. This entailed threats to the physical security of individuals, threats regarding prison sentences for dubious reasons, but also threats to close down the whole organization. Again, in line with their rather structuralist approach, the NGO’s did not opt for one guilty party in particular, but appealed to the morals of each individual. This can be regarded as the starting point for more structural, progressive shifts towards greater justice in terms of land distribution
85 and access to assets. But it can also be due to the fear to say anything more in specific that could put them at danger.
5.4 Interviews with governmental actors
The governmental actors consulted for this research were the local chairmen of the villages in which the women were interviewed. Two lawyers who work for the governmental Uganda Human Rights Commission were also interviewed, as were land officers from the regional administration. During this stage of the research, it has still proven difficult to make contact with members of the relevant ministries.
“Now that you’re here, I am telling you what you should have done in advance”
Upon reaching out to the governmental actors, a whole range of responses was displayed. Patterns of defensiveness were demonstrated to the researchers, along with compliance, and sometimes even expressions of relief when asked about the topic. The defensiveness was shown for example when it appeared to be almost impossible to arrange meetings, even when the process of requesting a meeting took place in the manner that is prescribed by the authorities.
As an example for this, the first contact with a leading administrative officer proved challenging. The officer showed a high level of hesitation towards the research project.
Officer: So now you’re coming to (city) to let’s say, speak to some people…? Researcher: Yes, we are carrying out a research (handing over the letter of appointment) Officer: I see. Well, your topic is so broad and so vague. Researcher: The topic is neither too broad, nor too vague. The letter of the university points out pretty clearly what the research is about. Officer: However, your research activities are not backed by anyone. Researcher: Well, we have the permission of the Regional District Commissioner (handing over the letter). Officer: Nevertheless, you have to make an appointment in advance, you have to call. Researcher: Okay, we didn’t know this. Now that we’re here, isn’t it possible to… Officer: (interrupts) Now that you are here, I am telling you what you should have done in advance and what you failed to do.
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After all, it was not possible not possible to arrange an interview. However, when the researchers kept on explaining their topic, the officer gave some comments and he mentioned that he was aware of cases in which financial compensations were misused. Hinting at the moral weaknesses of individual people and overtly blaming some of the victims of having caused the miserable situation they are facing by themselves, he talked about instances of men being overwhelmed by their sudden money and who – in a state of complete unawareness for the long-term consequences – “enjoyed feeding their goats with soda and washing their feet in beer”.
“Streetkids in Hoima? I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Furthermore, the researchers spoke to land officers in Hoima and Buliisa. Some of the land officers were aware of the challenges faced by many households who had to migrate. They expressed awareness about people who had to move elsewhere and others who could not move to formal alternative settlements but had been evicted, sometimes by force, and had to flee to informal settlements, such as makeshift camps in Hoima and Buliisa. The circumstances in these camps were described as being very difficult, with problems of food insecurity and inferior hygiene. People are unable to uphold daily routines. Children in the camps could often no longer attend school because the journey had become too distant and dangerous for them. Furthermore, some of the schools in the affected areas had been closed down with no replacement.
One of the land officers very clearly pointed out the disadvantageous situation provoked especially for girls. He said that he knew about many girls dropping out of school at an early age. As a result, they were more prone to becoming “teenage mums”, although neither the girls, nor their social environment actually had the capacity to care for a child under such circumstances. As an effect of this and within a timespan of “five years or so”, the interviewee suspected a high likelihood for increasing numbers of homeless children.
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As long as there are no complaints, there is no problem
The awareness exhibited by some of the land officers cannot be seen as a rule. Other land officers showed an attitude that can best be described in line with the principle of “no plaintiff, no judge”. They said that there were opportunities for affected people to address their concerns about the difficulties they face, but hardly anyone did so. One land officer stated that she did not receive a single complaint, and therefore she was not aware of a problem. Nevertheless, the majority of land officers conceded that there might be people suffering due to development-induced migration, even when they themselves had not received any such complaints.
The government-employed human rights lawyers who participated in the research explained that the legal differentiation between human rights abuses and human rights violations played a major role. According to what the lawyers explained in the interview, a human rights abuse was an act that is not necessarily in line with the human rights, but that is, on the other hand, not equal to a criminal offence. Therefore, it cannot be prosecuted. A human rights violation, however, is clearly violating the human rights and can also be prosecuted legally. Being responsible only for the judgment of human rights violations meant that they were dealing with very few cases. Cases of domestic violence, children no longer getting a formal education and the like, did not belong to their area of influence. In these cases, the organization’s sole task would be to refer the affected people to other organizations that might be responsible instead.
5.4.1 “Our hands are tied.”
The governmental actors who were consulted on the regional and local level demonstrated different degrees of awareness of the problems indicated by the women in the villages. The majority of the government actors said they knew about the matters to which the research questions refer. Others expressed emotional responses towards, or frustration about, their limited possibilities to influence the situation. In the end, different actors literally said: “Our hands are tied”. They reported on ineffective workshops that were organized every once in a while and where few results could be
88 achieved. Furthermore, they mentioned rare or non-existent opportunities to become involved in actual processes of policy-making. They said that the major decisions were taken in the governmental offices in the capital, and that the local level was not consulted at all.
Yet others showed little or no interest toward the topic, treating the matter with an attitude that can probably best be described as ironic distance. They did show a very proactive attitude at all and formal processes, as for example the hand-written registration of many details of the researchers, took sometimes longer than the conversation that was ultimately taking place.
The attitude presented by five out of the six governmental actors, who were interviewed, suggested that they did, to some extent, know about the problems in their districts. At least in one case, the unwillingness to share any information and behaving in a provocative manner, can be seen as an indicator for this. In other cases, the interviewees might even be willing to do something about the problem - if only they could. Referring back to coping strategies that are necessary for each individual to exercise his/her freedom and to master internal and external demands, the framing of lacking alternatives, or unknowingness, might thus be one opportunity to master the earlier named demands. Assuming the additional factor of fear, this sort of framing might even be the only way to actually handle the pressure of severe circumstances taking place in close proximity. The production and reproduction of the notion that “our hands are tied”, is transformed into the practice of showing understanding in some cases, presenting rejection in other cases, but not fighting the structures.
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6 Discussion and conclusions Once oil exploitation will start in Uganda, a new chapter in the development process of the country will be started. The large number of scientific works that focus on the implications of oil finds, especially in developing countries, gives an impression of the major impact that the abundance of the natural resource oil has wherever it is discovered in the world.
Oil exploitation in Uganda will be implemented by the Ugandan government and is accomplished by engaging private sector companies. Of course, this will have an effect on almost all spheres of nature and human life. Both ecosystems and human beings show certain vulnerabilities that prevent them from coping with the challenges they are confronted with. With a special focus on the gender-dimension of vulnerability, the vulnerability of women under the influence of development-induced migration in Hoima and Buliisa has been assessed.
Coping with shocks and the opportunity to adapt Sub-research question 1 - The theoretical perspective
The selected literature provides various perspectives on the vulnerability of women under the impact of development-induced migration. First of all, with the exception of a very small number of authors, the majority of reports do not question whether land grabbing and development-induced migration are currently taking place in Western Uganda. Rather they search for adequate ways to describe it.
A broad consensus also exists that development-induced migration shows patterns of involuntary movements that create severely detrimental situations for those affected by it. Women are expected to show special patterns of vulnerability and lower levels of protection than men based on their sex. In addition, women in war-torn areas are known to be especially vulnerable. As previously discussed, their vulnerability is determined by both internal and external factors.
The internal factors of the women’s vulnerability are determined by their capacity to cope with the changes they are confronted with due to the envisioned oil exploitation.
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Furthermore, their access to, and control over, assets determines in how far they are able to withstand the external and internal pressure that is exerted on them. The so- called gender gap in agricultural activity, for example, can have an influence on women’s ability to cope with disturbances and is determined by the access to productive and economic resources that would enable them to increase their income, which in turn would make them less vulnerable. In fact, the participants of this research showed alarmingly low levels of livelihood security. For many of the participants, the means of survival, such as the availability of food, or housing, were not secured after all and therefore, a discussion about increasing the women’s productivity is inexpedient in the current situation.
The internal vulnerability, thus the women’s capacity to cope with the current situation, is determined by their mental capacity to cope with stress, as shown by one of the interviewees who mentioned her thoughts of committing suicide because of the distressful situation. Furthermore, the women’s social networks seem to play a major role for this. The notion of being new to a place, as it has been mentioned as a difficulty by one of the interviewee, has an impact on the way that the women are able to cope with the risk of being socially uprooted due to their migratory movements.
The external factors are defined by entitlement theories, political economy perspectives and human ecology approaches. According to entitlement theory, the women’s position is determined by the commodity or power bundles that are accessible to them. The frequently discussed lack of an adequate legal framework that governs big land transactions, for example, is part of this external vulnerability, as this does not provide the women with the power to ensure their ownership of land or their right to remain in the areas that they used to inhabit.
Altogether, three factors determine the women’s vulnerability in general, which may be defined as the exposure to shocks, the capacity to cope with shocks and the potentiality of shocks to have severe consequences.
Firstly, the exposure to the shock that is impacting the women’s lives is relatively easy to determine in this case. All parts of the land, where oil has been detected under the surface became potential oil exploitation areas and since then, the use of the land became subject to dispossession in the sense that sooner or later the inhabitants were
91 evicted, or had to be resettled. It is obvious that there were almost no measures that the women could have taken in the first place to lower the degree to which they were physically exposed to this shock.
By distinction, the often criticized lack of information could have taken influence on the exposure of the women to the shock. The distribution of consistent information about what is going to happen could have potentially smoothened the whole process of migrating and it could have mitigated the force with which evictions were undertaken.
Secondly, with regard to the women’s capacity to cope, it is very likely that a viable, enforceable and socially accepted legal framework that protects the women can strengthen the individual capacity to cope. The same applies to the access to formal education and, again, consistent information can help to take decisions that support individual and common coping strategies. Furthermore, social connections, be it kinship relations or other familial and community relations, play a tremendous role with regard to the (social) security of the women. Hence, firstly, the high exposure to the oil, which is eventually causes many of the problems and secondly, the lack of information, are two of the factors that determine the women’s availability of coping mechanisms.
Thirdly, the potentiality of the disruption to have long-lasting consequences is inter alia determined by the strategy applied by many of the households in Western Uganda, to solely depend on agriculture. Though in many cases the only opportunity to make a living, it is not a very sustainable way to generate an income. As soon as this source of income does not exist anymore – as it is the case when households are forced to leave their land - the consequences are severe and immediately apparent because it very likely leads to a decreased food security for all affected household members.
The analysis of the women’s vulnerability to development-induced migration and its consequences is described by the scientific literature to a certain extent. Development- induced migration is a very challenging issue for all people who are affected by it and it very often leads to crisis. Seen these consequences, it can be seen as a kind of forced migration. Nevertheless, the lines between voluntary and involuntary migration are blurry. As the literature describes it, people might tend to leave their homes, as soon as they know that their right to stay is threatened. Therefore, their way of adapting to the new circumstances happens as a precaution and so they might even leave without force.
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In fact they are compelled to leave under the pressures exerted on them and therefore, it would go unduly far to conclude that this migration has happened voluntarily. The conceptualization of the continuum-model, with voluntary migration at one end of the continuum, and forced migration at the other end is thus endorsed by the relevant literature about the vulnerability of women under the impact of development-induced migration.
Assessing the losses and figuring out responsibilities Sub-research question 2 - The empirical perspective
The relevant stakeholders - or rather all people who are affected, regardless of whether they have a direct stake in the ongoing events, or not - that were interviewed for the research had different perspectives on the vulnerability of women under the impact of development-induced migration. The primary stakeholders, who are the affected women, extensively mentioned that their situation has worsened since they had to leave their homes.
The majority of women reported that for different reasons, their family constellations suffered from the forced changes in their living situations. Referring to aspects of entitlement theory, the women did not have the access to, and control of, assets so that they have not only been left behind by their husbands but they have also lost their entitlement to live on the families’ land. Furthermore, they do not have the entitlement to actually question their roles that are determined by the gender norms of the socio- political sphere they are living in. Being stuck in several ways, lacking information and agency were the main complaints stipulated by the female participants. This all is perceived to be caused by the abundance of oil. But as the abundance of oil is obviously a factor the women cannot influence, they describe their situation as desperate. Interestingly enough, the women’s husbands who left them behind were described as ubiquitously powerful, as the organizations that made empty promises about possible compensations and the abundance of oil in general.
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The non-governmental actors emphasized the consequences for women under the impact of development-induced migration as very severe. According to some of the non-governmental actors, women, men and children all suffer from the challenges that are imposed on them. The women suffer disproportionally, however. The situation for many of the women was described as sheer chaos. Once they were left alone by their husbands, they struggle for their survival and they lack protection in various ways. With a specific focus on the situation in informal settlements and/or camps, one of the interview actors said: “Everyone who can, runs away (..). The elderly, women and children often can’t”.
Seeing the fact that many husbands left their wives when the situation changed, and also referring to the many encroachments, that have been mentioned by the women and that were committed by men against them, some of the non-governmental actors hinted at the individual responsibilities that everyone has to take, despite all political or economic challenges. Subsequently, the severe problems faced by the women under the impact of development-induced migration in Hoima and Buliisa, were attributed to weak morals and not so much an issue of good or bad governance.
Altogether, the governmental actors showed an ambiguous understanding of the women’s vulnerability under the impact of development-induced migration. In some cases, awareness was shown about the fact that there are women who are confronted with a certain kind of hardship since oil spotting activities and test drills have been taking place. In other cases, ignorance and lack of knowledge were presented. Either way, governmental actors showed an attitude in the sense of the earlier described perspective that can best be summarized with the words: “Our hands are tied”. This means that whether they know about what happens at the moment or not, they do not have the possibility to act anyway.
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Survival under harsh conditions, the role of preparedness and the relationship between oil and violence Sub-research question 3 – Combining the theoretical and the empirical information
Combining the findings of the literature research and the empirical data gathering, it can be concluded that development-induced migration is currently taking place in Hoima and Buliisa. In addition to that, the poor implementation of compensation practices exacerbates the situation for the affected women. Whether or not it is accompanied by a few days of preparatory training, unknown amounts of money given out as financial compensation prove to be very difficult to handle for the individuals and their relatives who are not accustomed to dealing with large amounts of money. Moreover, the lack of uniform regulation makes it very hard for the affected people affected and the organizations trying to help them to find a (legal) basis that provides clarity about the extent of the effects of the project.
According to what was told by the interview partners, both governmental and non- governmental actors, who mentioned the existence of informal camps, it is apparent that the informal camps, are not suited to functioning as long-term solutions and thus far have caused a great deal of harm.
Altogether, there is hardly any proper organizational strategy recognizable that would mitigate the effects of development-induced migration for the affected individuals. The lack of an organizational strategy, can be seen as an indication of low institutional capacity in the Ugandan context, which according to Le Billon (2010) increases the risk of violence that develops due to development of natural oil resources.
The country’s weak institutional capacity, the hardly diverse and not complex structure of the Ugandan agricultural sector, in addition to declining prices for oil on the world market, are likely to result in a low per capita rent that is to be expected from the trade with oil. Subsequently, this can reinforce a situation of civil unrest.
Furthermore, Uganda’s geography is critical. It is a landlocked country with internal territorially-based conflict and it is neighboured by countries that are facing civil unrest on a regular basis, or that witnessed severe conflicts during the last decades. According
95 to Le Billon (2010), these are possible reasons for armed conflict to unfold. In addition to this challenging point of departure, the great majority of oil fields in Uganda are located on-shore, which is a factor that is also likely to instigate violence.
In combining the findings of this research, it becomes very apparent that good governance, geography, historically rooted gender relations and the economy can only account for one side of the high levels of the women’s vulnerability under the impact of development-induced migration. The other side of the problem is not less pressing and is mainly retrieved from the findings of the field research. The majority of the women mentioned that they did not know anything about what would be happening to them. On the one hand, this simply refers to the general lack of information that was shared with the affected people. On the other hand, this especially reflects the lacking entitlement of women to receive information and to equally participate in society.
Referring to the double-structured nature of vulnerability, as it is conceptualized by Bohle (2001), the factors named above, belong to the external side of vulnerability and can mainly be assessed from a political economy perspective. The lacking information that was made available to the women, however, also belongs to the internal side of vulnerability and can be seen as a lacking access to assets. At this point, it is becoming apparent that firstly, the external and internal side of vulnerability are overlapping and cannot be assessed individually, because the (lacking) access to assets is of cause not reasoned by individual shortcomings, it is rather determined by institutional and socio- political realities that are subject to political decision making.
With regard to the findings of this research, many of the factors that put women in a disadvantageous situation are not mitigated by any actor involved and therefore, the whole issue turns out to have an especially strong political dimension that determines the inequality in the gender dimension of vulnerability. Within this context, the political dimension refers to the official rights of women that are not exercised, as for example in the cases where women were not allowed to open back accounts, or when they were excluded from decision-making processes. Furthermore, the role of the non- governmental actors raises some questions. In fact, many of them do not dare to criticize the government, which eventually makes it harder for them to assume the
96 obligation to support the affected women. In a very similar way, this applies to some of the governmental actors. The difficulties, for example, to arrange an interview appointment, indicate that there must be a reason for the hesitation. This could either be due to fear for repercussion, or due to the fact that the officers dispose over knowledge that they do not want to share with the public. Altogether, the political system seems to make use of force and repercussion to an extent that the free exchange of knowledge is restricted and that processes can take place and political decisions can be taken, that are only very vaguely shared with the public.
In fact, the forced migration occurred to the affected women, like a radical surprise, as it is actually known from climate change induced shocks (cf. Kuhlicke 2012). “The 'radical surprise' occurs when an actor discovers that established and collectively shared experiences, stocks of knowledge and also believes about the environment turn out to be no longer helpful to deal with the environment, since environment behaves entirely differently than expected” (ibid., p. 1). With a slightly different focus, this summarizes very well what the affected women described and what was discussed in the literature.
Summing up the findings of this research, the perspective provided by the theoretical framework as it was presented in the beginning of this thesis, does not seem to apply unconditionally. First of all, the discussion, whether the abundance of the natural resource oil is a blessing, or a curse, does not suffice. The only thing that can be stated with certainty is that the women in Hoima and Buliisa were not prepared for any of them. But as widely accepted in other theories, such as the disaster risk theory, one major factor toward lowering the level of vulnerability towards external shocks is preparedness (cf. Birkmann 2006). The better individuals are prepared and the better they are able to adapt to the requirements imposed on them by various means, the better they are able to withstand the risks posed to their livelihoods, be it due to a natural hazard, economic development or political instability.
Besides, when discussing the relationship between the abundance of a natural resource and the likeliness for conflict to arise, it is rather Le Billon’s argument (2010) that
97 seems to apply in the given context. According to Le Billon’s conceptualization it is not oil in the first place that results in problems for the women in the Lake Albert basin, but it is rather the poor implementation of it that puts a lot of harm on the women. It creates a situation where women are denied to access the land they used to live on. In the rural areas of Western Uganda, however, the denial of access to land inevitably endangers the livelihoods of the rural population and especially for the ones, who have the least access to power among them, the women and children. Since it is exactly the group of the rural poor under which especially women, who also do not have the capacity, the entitlement, or the bundle of powers available to develop a viable and alternative way of living, they are the ones who are at risk of being completely trapped. At the same time, Hickey et al. (2015) describe that the rural poor in Uganda play an important role in the maintenance of presidential power.
In part, legal frameworks may make a difference in this situation. But as extensively described with regard to legal frameworks against corruption, a legal basis does not mean much as long as the laws are not enforced. Furthermore, also changes in traditionally rooted land ownership regulations do not necessarily change the situation for the better. The social uprooting due to the loss of land is supposedly as devastating for the men, as it is for the women. Thus, an externally induced change in traditional land ownership patterns is not very likely to contribute to a viable solution in this case.
When looking for a solution in this case, the question has to be posed in a much more general way. Speaking of development induced migration, it is worth to assess the factor of development as such and to raise the question for whom the oil find is supposed to bring the actual development. Officially, the Ugandan citizens are supposed benefit from the development that can be realized thanks to the abundance of oil. So far, however, at least seen from the women’s perspective in Buliisa and Hoima, there is nothing like a positive development recognizable and it doubtable whether it will be, once oil drilling starts over the next years.
In the current situation, it is striking to see to what extent the women in Hoima and Buliisa still manage to ensure their own and their children’s survival. This was especially remarkable in the cases of the women, who had to change their source of
98 income, for example from growing vegetables in their gardens and selling them locally, to even more exhausting activities, like charcoal production and the cutting of grass. These women are exposed to many risks. Nevertheless, they manage to fulfill the basic requirements for them and their children and at the same time, these women are not entitled to take the steps that would go beyond meeting the bare necessities, because banks would not grant credits and technically, also health care cannot be provided to someone without an income. The insights formulated by many women who emphasized that they were stuck and would not know any way to free themselves out of the challenging situation confirms Paul Collier’s conceptualization of the Bottom Billion (2008). Using the prevalence of Malaria as an example, Collier states that “Malaria keeps countries poor, and because they are poor the potential market for vaccine is not sufficiently valuable to warrant drug companies making the huge investment in research that is necessary” (ibid., p. 5). Furthermore, he states that a society “can gradually climb out of poverty” (ibid.) by its own means, as long as it does not get trapped. The four traps mentioned by Collier are the natural resources trap, the trap of being landlocked with bad neighbours, the conflict trap and the trap of bad governance in a small country (cf. ibid). Eventually, the poorest countries in the world constantly run the risk to remain poor because they are poor in the first place and therefore do not have the opportunity to act at all.
The future will thus show the direction in which the repressive practices as reported by some non-governmental actors and the total lack of any preparedness will lead the country and whether it has an effect on the unfolding of violence on a state level. So far, in any case, a lot of violence has been exercised on an individual level and it appears that the women of Hoima and Buliisa are the ones paying the highest price for the development to come, although they are presumably not the ones, who will benefit from it.
99
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Appendix A: The oil exploration and production cycle Source: TOTAL E&P Uganda (n.d.)
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Keywords: vulnerability of women (A), development-induced migration (B), Lake Albert basin (C), oil find (D)
Concept Vulnerability (vulnerability of) development-induced Lake Albert basin oil find women migration Synonyms Resilience Gender Evictions Western Oil Exposure Female Involuntary Uganda exploration Risk Sex Resettlement Albertine Oil Danger Moving Graben exploitation Shifting Hoima Economic development
Buliisa Masindi Oil
East Africa production
2015)
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Appendix B Appendix C
Data Base Search Search field Hits ActionAid Uganda (Resilience OR Exposure OR Risk OR Danger) Articles/Papers/Reports 32 (www.oilinugand.org) AND (Gender OR Female OR Sex) AND (Evictions OR Involuntary OR Resettlement OR Moving OR Shifting) AND (Western Uganda OR Albertine Graben OR Hoima OR Buliisa OR Masindi OR East Africa) AND (Oil exploration OR Oil exploitation OR Economic development OR Oil production)
Eldis.org see above Country and Region Profiles - Uganda 157 plus 22 only osonl eolyil UN Databases see above UN WOMEN 18 Africa (africa.unwomen.o rg) United Nations 5 University (www.unu.edu) Worldbank Database see above Africa – Social 2 (www.data.worldbank.org) development/gender/Inclusion Table 4: Literature search in five databases (carried out between 5 August and 20 November 2015)
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(Vulnerability OR Resilience OR Exposure OR Risk OR Danger) AND (Women OR Gender OR Female OR Sex) AND (Evictions OR Involuntary OR Resettlement OR Moving OR Shifting) AND (Uganda
OR Lake Albert OR Hoima OR Buliisa OR East Africa) AND (Oil exploration OR Economic development OR Oil production)
ActionAid Uganda: Eldis: UN Databases: WorldbankDatabase: 32 Hits 177 Hits 23 Hits 2 Hits
Screening title and abstract Selection criteria: (1) Scope (the topic discussed is relevant to the research within the field of international development) (2) Relevance (the topic discussed is relevant to the topic of this research) (3) Robustness (of the theoretical framework) (4) Clarity (of the research question and theoutcomes) (5) Appropriateness (of the research methods applied) (cf. Teaching and Learning Research Programme 2009) Removal of duplicates
44 articles
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Appendix C: Semi-structured questionnaires
An interview guide for interviews with affected women
MBARARA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE OF INTERDISCIPLINARY TRAINING AND RESEARCH P.O. BOX 1410 MBARARA
Dear respondent,
We are Specioza Twinamasiko, a PhD student of Mbarara University of Science and Technology and Catharina Nickel, a Master’s student from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. We are conducting a study on the oil discovery in this area and the social implications it has on the inhabitants of this region. The study is for academic purposes. We would like to ask you to participate in an interview and provide us with some information on the above mentioned topic.
We guarantee promise that the information will be treated with maximum confidentiality, privacy and anonymity. You can stop the interview at any time. Please feel free to ask any question that comes up.
Thanks for accepting to participate. With your signature you indicate that we read out this text for you and that the data is used for an academic study.
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Date Place Time Number Interviewer
Section A: Basic Data & Living Situation
Name Age Gender Occupation
Education Level Marital Religion Where do you status live?
HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS
Living in the Household
Name Age Sex Relation to Economic Interviewee activity
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LIVING ELSEWHERE
Name age Sex Relation to Economic interviewee activity
1. Under what conditions did you come to stay in this place?
2. For how long do you think you are going to stay in this place?
Section B: Economic status
3. What is your source of income today?
4. Is it the same sources of income in the last ten years?
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5. Do you experience any challenges when trying to maintain these activities?
Section C: Personal welbeing
6. With regard to living and working, is there anything to complain about?
7. If yes, please describe it.
END
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An interview guide for interviews with governmental and non-governmental actors MBARARA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE OF INTERDISCIPLINARY TRAINING AND RESEARCH P.O. BOX 1410 MBARARA
Dear respondent,
We are Specioza Twinamasiko, a PhD student of Mbarara University of Science and Technology and Catharina Nickel, a Master’s student from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. We are conducting a study on the oil discovery in this area and the social implications it has on the inhabitants of this region. The study is for academic purposes. We would like to ask you to participate in an interview and provide us with some information on the above mentioned topic.
We guarantee promise that the information will be treated with maximum confidentiality, privacy and anonymity. You can stop the interview at any time. Please feel free to ask any question that comes up.
Thanks for accepting to participate. With your signature you indicate that we read out this text for you and that the data is used for an academic study.
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Date Place Time Number Interviewer
Section A: Background Information
Name Age Gender Occupation S e c Education level Religion Marital status Since when do you t have this position? i o B: Information about the organzation 1. Please give us some information about your organization.
Section C: Insights in the oil find . 2. Are you aware of the oil find in this region?
3. How would you assess the oil find in this region? Rather positive, or negative?
4. Have you heard from anyone benefitting from the oil find?
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5. Are you aware of anyone who does not benefit from it?
6. If yes, who belongs to these groups?
END
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Appendix D: Calculation of the level of saturation
Individual Interviews 35
30
25
20 New codes 15 Code modifications
10
5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
11 individual interviews delivered 104 codes
91.2 per cent of the codes were identified after six interviews, 5 additional interviews were held in order to avoid missing important information
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