Josine Stremmelaar

The political divide between Southern and Northern Uganda is often cited. The North has not only felt politically marginalised, but also in socio-economic terms. Norbert Mao, chairman of Gulu district, explained in an interview with The Observer (18 July 2009) how the North was structurally neglected in the allocation of resources. The Northern region has always supported the opposition against President Museveni. Indeed, many people wonder why it took the government 20 years to address the conflict in a meaningful way.

With the now wide attention for the recovery of the Acholi sub-region and other conflict-affected areas, debates about the north-south divide are the talk of the day.

Now what do we see when we study the ‘Peace and Recovery Development Plan for Northern Uganda’ (PRDP)? The PRDP consists of 4 ‘pillars’ or strategic objectives: 1) Consolidation of State Authority, 2) Rebuilding and Empowering Communities, 3) Revitalisation of the Economy, and 4) The central government puts in a lot of money in tangibles; reconstructing infrastructure to improve access to services. Indeed, this is of upmost importance to the population that was affected and marginalised due to the conflict. However, it is also a very convenient way for this government to buy Northern votes and not having to address the political issues and the North-South divide.

The Refugee Law Project (RLP) at Makerere University called the PRDP a ‘three legged table’ for its lack of funding of the fourth pillar ‘peace building and reconciliation’. Reconciliation in a national sense is not addressed.

There are more gaps to the PRDP; governance is defined in technical terms as service delivery and the quality of political processes are ignored. Though strategic objective 2 speaks of ‘empowering people’, the activities under this objective focus on return of IDPs and provision of health, water and education. However, governance is not just about service delivery from governments to citizens (down the stream). It is also about meaningful participation of citizens in policy processes. Though official structures for citizen participation in development planning are in place at local level, their functioning in a post-conflict reality is utterly weak. Both citizens and local governments lack knowledge and capacities to fully engage in participatory processes. Moreover, we cannot neglect the 20 years of fear and desperation in which people lived and how this affected their (collective) capacities to demand services from government.

Regarding objective 1 – rebuilding state authority - I can only fully agree with RLP in saying the political legitimacy rather than authority should be strengthened. Legitimacy is offered by citizens and their support to institutions, which is enhanced when they can have a say in them. However, strengthening the voice of citizens and government response is not addressed in the PRDP at all.

It is only 17 months to the next presidential elections. The North has always largely supported the opposition parties. Maybe, the government is a bit afraid of a ‘recovered population’ that strengthens its voice.