Challenges
Vulnerable Communities
Many communities throughout Uganda, especially those in rural areas, are increasingly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse by corporate and government officials eager to exploit natural resources in misguided “economic development” projects that can do more harm than good. Viewed as isolated, powerless and uninformed by these officials, these communities are usually unable to defend their interests.
As a result, communities and poor families have been forcibly removed from their traditional lands with no proper resettlement and compensation – in some instances rendered landless, hunger stricken and destitute. Legal protections meant to cushion such impacts are rendered meaningless when government officials refuse to enforce them – because of corruption or callousness – believing that these communities are too docile, fearful or unaware to challenge them and hold them accountable.
These officials also refuse to disclose publicly even the most basic documents about these projects, citing specious “confidentiality clauses” or national security interests. Influenced by short-term thinking or their own private interests, they show no regard for environmental sustainability – the key to long-term viability and prosperity of Uganda.
Vulnerable Communities Suffer
When such projects deplete or degrade the natural resources these communities depend on, many suffer loss of livelihood, health and property as a result. For example, powerful companies and officials have illegally acquired land in the Albertine oil region to sell or lease to oil companies, depriving communities of their traditional rights. In August 2011, for example, the military that it would evict some 3,000 residents in the Hoima district to establish a large army base to protect the oil fields.
Communities like these are especially vulnerable because their geographic, social and political isolation keeps them from understanding their legal rights and how to carry their grievances to government officials and the larger public. As observers have noted, many rural people see the provision of basic services like roads, clean water, schools and health care as gifts – and not an enforceable right. With local government budgets and accounts kept secret, they will never know where public funds meant for a road or a school actually was spent – or misspent.
Moreover, women in these communities too often are consigned to passive roles by traditional customs, further depriving communities of the vast potential of women to contribute their knowledge and energies to such vital struggles. Women are further disadvantaged in many rural communities by both legal and informal bars to their ownership of land, which denies them both resources and stature in the community.
NAPE’s Sustainability School
Having responded to numerous crises in vulnerable communities with intensive efforts to organize and protect them, NAPE in 2009 decided on a more active, instead of reactive, approach. We established the Sustainability School, selecting communities in need to receive intensive training.
Volunteer community sustainability educators now conduct educational and training sessions in selected villages to familiarize residents with sustainability issues that affect them, the impact of government proposals and decisions affecting their communities, their political and legal rights in such areas as access to official information and environmental self-governance, and how they can mobilize their communities to assert these rights and hold governmental officials accountable. To ensure gender mainstreaming, we require that half of the volunteer educators are women.
By 2011, Sustainability Schools are in eight districts. We expect to continue expanding them to even more districts in the years to come.
To read documents about vulnerable communities, click here for Library.
To read more about NAPE’s action agenda, click here.
