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251. The Rise and Fall of Mass Taxation in Uganda

Author:
Ole Therkildsen
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
Although Graduated Personal Tax (GPT) paid to local government in Uganda has caused numerous tax riots throughout the past century, it is only since the mid-1990s that competitive presidential elections have provided people with an effective way to express their dissatisfaction with it. Thus, greater political competition was instrumental in almost dismantling the GPT in 2001 and abolished in 2005. Positive governance effects will follow from this. As shown by the comparison of taxpayer rights and enforcement practices (in particular the use of imprisonment) for GPT and income tax paid to central government, the former has been collected with the use of much more coercion than the latter. Coercive approaches to taxation become more difficult to sustain with greater political competition.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

252. Poor People in Environmental Management in Uganda and Tanzania

Author:
Kim Raben, Michael Kidoido, Dositeus Lopa, Zarupa Akello, and Jannik Boesen
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
This is a paper on analysing the Participatory Environmental Management (PEMA) programme's impact on poverty, livelihoods, and the knowledge-attitudes-practices syndrome in the Kasyoha- Kitomi forest landscape in Uganda and the South Nguru forest landscape in Tanzania. The objectives of the Participatory Environmental Management (PEMA) programme are to improve the livelihood security of poor, natural resource dependent households [...] and enhance the capacity of civil society and government institutions to design and implement effective ICD programmes The principal purpose is to analyse the poverty situation in each landscape in terms of the level and composition of poverty and the factors causing the poverty of different groups of the population. A secondary purpose is, during the first phase, to be able to indicate the effects of forest management on poor people's livelihoods, to register their relationships with the forest, and not least to analyse the involvement of the poor and marginalised in new initiatives of landscape planning and environmental management. DIIS has developed a methodology for monitoring the poverty impacts of agricultural interventions at household level, which is now being used for this purpose.
Topic:
Development, Environment, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, and Tanzania

253. Religion and conflict in Africa with a special focus on East Africa

Author:
Bjørn Moller
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
The report provides a brief overview of the religious landscape of Africa with a special focus on the role of religion in the continent's several conflicts. It then proceeds to look at East Africa, where the three religious “families” of traditional religion, Islam and Christianity are all present in large numbers. It does not find any significant correlation between conflict propensity or terrorism and religion, neither in the sense that religious diversity gives rise to any “clash of civilizations” nor in the sense that the predominance of any one religion (e.g. Islam) make a country more prone to conflict or terrorism. It then proceeds to country case studies of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, providing a brief overview of the history of religion and conflict and an assessment of the present situation and the prospects for the future.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Religion
Political Geography:
Uganda, Kenya, Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, and East Africa

254. An Overview of the Certified Organic Export Sector in Uganda

Author:
Peter Gibbon
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
This paper reports the results of a survey of almost all certified and in-conversion organic export operations in Uganda in late 2005. It covers products exported, company size and ownership, standards exported to, certification costs, total export values, value-added in Uganda, marketing channels, crop procurement systems, management of organic operations and the main challenges experienced by exporters. Findings include that numbers of certified exporters are growing rapidly. Export values are also growing, but more slowly: They reached USD 6.2 million in 2005. A handful of firms exporting coffee and cotton dominate the sector and this situation is likely to remain. Though the sector is maturing, most recent entrants are small, relatively weak and currently depend on donor support.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

255. Gender, HIV/AIDS and Rural Livelihoods: Micro-Level Investigations in Three African Countries

Author:
Esther Wiegers, John Curry, Alessandra Garbero, Shannon Stokes, and John Hourihan
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
HIV/AIDS has a severe impact on food security, affecting all of its dimensions: availability, stability, access, utilization. FAO recognizes that HIV/AIDS is a determining factor for, as well as a consequence of, food insecurity. Although the relationships among gender, food security and rural livelihoods have been acknowledged in the growing literature on HIV/AIDS impacts, relatively few studies provide adequate focus and empirical evidence on the gender aspects of these interrelationships among vulnerable rural households. Such gender aspects of these relationships have been explored in detail by FAO in Namibia, Uganda and Zambia This paper presents the main findings of the four baseline studies and discusses the methodologies used to identify vulnerable households and document changes in resource availability, household labour force, livelihood strategies, coping strategies and food security status. These findings offer useful insights for policy formulation purposes and for the development of mitigation strategies that respond to the food security challenges of the epidemic.
Topic:
Development and Gender Issues
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, Zambia, and Namibia

256. Institutions and Economic Performance in Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Mauritius

Author:
Julius Kiiza
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper examines the relationship between institution building and economic performance in Mauritius, Botswana and Uganda. The rationale for comparing these cases is simple. While the three have been super-economic stars in their own right, they have achieved substantially different outcomes. Mauritius has achieved Asia-type rapid growth, backed by the structural transformation of the economy from colonial commodity production (sugar) to postcolonial higher value-added industrial and information outcomes. Botswana has delivered rapid and sustained growth with no structural economic transformation. Uganda has attained rapid growth for a shorter postcolonial period (since 1992) and with no structural transformation. This paper contends that these cross-national differences largely arise from the presence of developmental nationalism plus Weberian bureaucracies in Mauritius and Botswana, and their absence in Uganda.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Nationalism
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, Mauritius, and Botswana

257. Building a Comprehensive Peace Strategy for Northern Uganda

Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Peace may yet be possible in Northern Uganda in 2005. Many elements seem to be in place, but they need to be pursued by President Museveni's government in a more comprehensive framework, given stronger international support and - most urgently - be committed to by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the context of a specific process with a clearly definable endgame.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Government, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Uganda and North Africa

258. Bans, Tests and Alchemy: Food Safety Standards and Ugandan Fish Export

Author:
Stefano Ponte
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
Fish exports are the second largest foreign exchange earner in Uganda. When Uganda's fish export industry started to operate in the late 1980s and early 1990s, one may have thought that fish was being turned into gold. From an export value of just over one million US$ in 1990, the mighty Nile Perch had earned the country over 45 million US$ just six years later. But alchemy proved to be more than the quest of the philosophers' stone to change base metals into gold. From 1997 to 2000, the industry experienced a series of import bans, imposed by the EU on grounds of food safety. Despite claims to the contrary, the EU did not provide scientific proof that fish was actually 'unsafe'. Rather, the poor performance of Uganda's regulatory and monitoring system was used as a justification. The 'system', as the characters of an allegory, has no individual personality and is the embodiment of the moral qualities that 'the consumer' expects from 'responsible operators' in the fish sector. Only by fixing this system of regulations and inspections, and by performing the ritual of laboratory testing did the Ugandan industry regain its status as a 'safe' source of fish. Fish exports now earn almost 90 million US$ to the country. This apparent success story was achieved by a common front comprising government authorities and the processing industry, a high level of private-public collaboration not often seen in East Africa. Yet, important chunks of the regulatory and monitoring system exist only on paper. Furthermore, the system is supposed to achieve a series of contradictory objectives: to facilitate efficient logistics and ensure food safety; to match market demand and take care of sustainability; to implement a top-down food safety monitoring system and a bottom-up fisheries co-management system. This means that at least some food safety-related operations have to be carried out as 'rituals of verification'. Given the importance of microbiological tests and laboratories in the food safety compliance system, alchemic rituals are perhaps a more appropriate metaphor. While the white coats and advanced machinery of present-day alchemists reassure insecure European regulators and consumers, it leaves the Ugandan fish industry in a vulnerable position. In Uganda, fish can now be turned into gold again – but for how long?
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, United States, and East Africa

259. Norway's Fredskorpset Youth Program: Study of Selected Exchange Projects

Author:
Axel Borchgrevink and Torild Skard
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The Fredskorpset Youth program is a North-South exchange program facilitating the exchange of young people between partner organizations or institutions of Norway and countries of the South. The present study was commissioned in order to assess the degree to which stated goals of the exchanges were realized. Four exchanges were selected to be studied: between a Norwegian and Kenyan student organization (AIESEC); between a Norwegian missionary organization (NMS) and its counterpart church in Madagascar (FLM); between local Red Cross organizations in Norway and Uganda; and between a Norwegian (VUC) and two Malawian teacher training institutions (CC, LTTC). Objectives of the programs included acquiring new knowledge, attitudes and commitment at the level of individual participants, organizational strengthening and development of international contacts at the institutional level, and dissemination of information. As goals were mostly quite loosely formulated, it was difficult to assess the degree to which they were realized with any precision. Findings varied between the exchanges, but in general individual objectives were reached to some extent, while results might have been even stronger with more systematic attention to them. Institutional goals were achieved in most of the cases. In terms of information dissemination, this could be strengthened in most of the exchange programs.
Topic:
Development, Human Welfare, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Uganda, Kenya, Europe, Norway, and Madagascar

260. Conflicts, Poverty and Human Development in Northern Uganda

Author:
Justine Nannyonjo
Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The long-running conflict in northern Uganda has led to major violations of human rights against civilians, destruction of infrastructure, reduced access to social services, and paralysed economic activity. Creating peace and fostering reconciliation in the region have not been successful either, thereby hindering development and relief activities, which are further constrained by in sufficient funding, and lack of capacity at the district and community levels. The main challenges for reconstruction in northern Uganda are therefore to: (i) achieve peace and reconciliation (ii) provide basic social services to the affected areas (iii) strengthen government capacity to coordinate development and relief activities and (iv) harmonize interventions by the various stakeholders to achieve increased flexibility and transparency.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Economics, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa