Thursday, February 28, 2013

Kenya Elects:Its Either Hope Or Despair



Many Kenyans will go to the polls on 4 March with a sense of trepidation.  Three of the four elections since 1992 have been accompanied by significant violence; 2002 being the exception.  On each occasion politicians used local grievances over land and inequality to label supporters of rival candidates as ethnic “outsiders”.  Militias were then used to force those same voters from their homes.  Thousands of people were killed in violence around the 1992, 1997 and 2007 elections and tens of thousands more fled.  Some of these supposed “outsiders” never returned to places where their families had lived for decades; many Kenyans endure rather than celebrate elections.

Those of a nervous disposition would have hoped that this would be a straightforward election.  That is (clearly) not the case as the final result is too close to call.  With President Mwai Kibaki retiring after two terms in office, Prime Minister Raila Odinga is the front-runner.  But his lead in the opinion polls is narrow and he will almost certainly not win the outright majority needed to avoid a run-off in to be held in a few weeks’ time.

Odinga’s main rival is Uhuru Kenyatta, who, if successful, faces the prospect of governing the country while mounting his defence at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.  He and his running mate, William Ruto, are accused of orchestrating the violence that followed the 2007 election.  Rather than standing aside, both decided to exercise their right – confirmed recently by the Kenyan courts – to contest the election, apparently in order to gain a position of greater strength vis-à-vis the ICC.  They promise they can run the country and mount their defences in court through the use of technology.

In 2007 the rest of the world barely noticed the election until violence broke out during the suspiciously prolonged counting process.  This time, however, Kenya has held foreign attention for months before voters go to the polls.  The question that nags both foreign and local observers is a simple one: has enough been done over the past five years to avoid a repeat of the violence that lasted for two months from late December 2007 and claimed the lives of nearly 1200 people?

Much has been achieved, most notably independent inquiries into the management of the election and the subsequent violence, a new constitution and an on-going reform of the judiciary.  But it is hard to escape the conclusion that these reforms are not enough to guarantee a peaceful election.  A collective psychosis has therefore gripped many, but by no means all, local and foreign commentators.

Threatening isolation and fearing further instability should Kenyatta win, a whole array of figures, from President Obama and Kofi Annan down to the local diplomatic corps, have felt the need to advise Kenyans on how to vote – most likely to no or ill effect.  Uganda – whose businesses are still waiting for compensation for goods destroyed during the 2007-8 violence – has made contingency plans in case of disruption to vital imports being transported along the routes that connect it to the Indian Ocean.  Foreign investment slowed in 2012 due to fears of insecurity.  Local businesses have been buying dollars in case the Kenyan shilling collapses if violence follows the election.

So why does this election seem to matter so much?  There is a flippant and, on one level, accurate response to this question; it doesn’t.  For those of a cynical persuasion, one elite politician with a dubious record in government and a limited commitment to solving the problems of their poorest constituents will replace another, regardless of the result.  The candidates hardly have major differences of opinion over policy and anyone who thinks that a victory for Odinga will solve Kenya’s problems with the ICC is in for a shock.  It will take a lot to budge Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, who have access to enormous wealth and political leverage, if they refuse to go to The Hague, whether Kenyatta is president or not.  The ICC will be a constitutional and judicial leviathan, dominating the political landscape, for years to come.

But that does not really answer the question.  The election does matter.  To insist otherwise is to patronise an electorate that will turn out in great numbers and display euphoria and dismay in equal measure once the final result is announced.  The significance of the election can also be gauged from the international attention that this vote has garnered.  Viewed from abroad, Kenya has not seemed so significant since the end of the Cold War.  Its role in the Africa Union’s peace-building mission to Somalia has placed it on the front-line of global counter-terror operations and its economy is seen as the mainstay of a surging regional bloc encompassing North-Eastern and Eastern Africa.

There is another common and simple answer to the question of why the election matters; it’s ethnicity, stupid.  It is true that voting will, with some exceptions, follow predictable ethnic patterns, but ethnicity makes sense as a strategy for voters and leaders alike.
The voters know that there are not unlimited jobs.  

They also understand that land, at least in arable parts of the country, is under pressure for all sorts of reasons and that the state only has a finite amount of money for investment in development projects.  Clubbing together to protect what one holds while trying to work collectively to gain more wealth and influence is hardly irrational.  There may be better strategies for such collective action but ethnicity is what history has bequeathed Kenyans and ethnicity is what they have to work with.

For their part, the politicians are normally wealthy men and women seeking the votes of poor constituents.  Ethnicity provides a mechanism by which politicians can cross sometimes vast chasms of wealth and class to win the votes of individuals with whom they otherwise share little in common.  Kenya’s problem is that those in power have encouraged the divisions between groups to be violent and some of their supporters have followed suit; it is difficult to reverse back down that path.

For better or for worse, ethnicity is the way in which class, inequality and history are debated in Kenya.  Beneath the labels of Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luo, Luhya or Maasai are very different versions of the past and ideas about current and future policies.  One can subject almost any of the great debates in Kenyan politics to such an analysis, but in the interests of brevity take, for instance, devolution.

The subject of fierce debate in the years surrounding independence and in the early 1990s, devolution is a matter of great current significance too.  As well as choosing their member of parliament and the next president, voters will be electing representatives to fill newly empowered county administrations, new county governors and senators to represent the interests of their county in central government.

Many Kikuyu are skeptical about the value of devolution.  To some critics, this is nothing more than Kikuyu ethnic chauvinism.  Two of three presidents, Jomo Kenyatta (1963-78) and the outgoing Mwai Kibaki (2002-13) have been Kikuyu and so the community has been painted as unwilling to tolerate any devolution of significant powers from central to local government.  To be fair, neither president did much to dispel such criticism. 

 But with Kikuyu – to say nothing of the other major ethnic groups – spread across the country, many feel with good reason that central government is a better guarantor of their property rights and personal security than local authorities controlled by communities who see Kikuyu as an economic and political threat.  To many members of other, more economically marginal communities, such as Mijikenda at the Coast or Somali in the North East, an excessively centralized form of government is blamed for the uneven distribution of economic growth, improvements in living standards and investment in infrastructure.

The ICC and devolution are just two of the enormous issues that confront voters.  Others include strategies for continued economic growth, land reform, police reform, the on-going military intervention in Somalia; incidents of terrorism at home; a Coastal separatist movement; and the management of recently discovered oil and gas reserves.  The next government will (obviously) have tremendous influence over all these matters.  

Throw in regional integration and significant fiscal pressure and these are, truly, elections of great significance.
The time available for the next government to attend to any of these issues will, however, be dictated in large part by the conduct of the elections.  Much that is on the agenda will have to be sacrificed if, as with the past five years, time is lost mourning the dead and undergoing prolonged processes of transitional justice without any transition actually taking place.

Those hoping for dramatic change at this election or in the years to come will be disappointed.  Like most of the rest of Africa, Kenya had its Arab Spring – with all its attendant euphoria and disappointments – twenty years ago when the rest of the world was looking elsewhere.  Rather than revolution, a more modest hope for the future is simply for the next election to seem not to matter quite so much.  It doesn’t have to be like this every time, does it?

Monday, February 25, 2013

Kenyan Presidential Election Could have been About Issues ...But



Since multi-party democracy returned to Kenya in 1992, voting at election time has largely divided itself along ethnic lines. In 2007, when President Mwai Kibaki narrowly edged out Raila Odinga under a cloud of suspected vote tampering, the country descended into violence. The perception of blatant manipulation fomented bloodshed, as ethnic groups attached to the candidates attacked each other. Peace came slowly and only after a coalition government was formed elevating Odinga to Prime Minister.

In the aftermath, a country fearful of further division began making changes to the electoral process. Transparency was the watchword, with a new constitution establishing an Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. A presidential debate was also introduced, so candidates could communicate their proposals and people had more opportunities to make a decision based on policy instead of affiliation.
The new processes finally acknowledged that the Kenyan electorate is looking for substance. But even with the new procedures and institutions in place, voters aren’t getting an issues debate – at least not from the frontrunners.

Raila Odinga, who is in the running again as the head of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD), maintains a slim lead in most polls, though under the 50 percent margin that would avert a run-off election between the two top finishers. The other frontrunner, Uhuru Kenyatta – son of the country’s first president – heads the Jubilee Coalition, while six other candidates round out the field.

The Prime Minister’s campaign is convinced he can still win a first-ballot victory. If he does manage this, it will have to come from a huge turnout in his strongholds, though, because little effort is being made to change voters’ minds in other areas. As the candidate hopscotches the country, he is not using issues to engage undecided voters or the electorate that has defaulted to his opponents because of ethnic affiliation.


I have been following the campaign as it travels around Kenya via radio, TV and social media. Last week Odinga’s team announced a rally in Embu, a town in central Kenya at the edge of Kenyatta’s heartland. By noon a small crowd rested in the shade of the concrete grandstand, as the candidate’s team pitched tents and rolled out a red carpet. Though Odinga wouldn’t show up for another four hours, the group of voters had time to burn.

They were Kenyatta supporters almost to a person, but they were also unemployed and bored and several were willing to give Odinga a chance to persuade them why they should change their vote.
Specifically, they were looking for a jobs plan – an explanation of how Odinga would bring industry to Embu and its outlying areas so they could get to work. Instead, they got a series of speeches from local candidates and leaders excoriating Kenyatta, followed by a short message from Odinga himself. Job creation was mentioned, but only in broad strokes, as if he was just reading from his manifesto. Then the candidate was off, a cloud of dust from his helicopter coating the people sheltering in the grandstand.

The Odinga campaign is content to operate under the traditional system of personality politics. The real work went into building the national coalition, with an expectation that the ethnic bases would follow their leaders. It seemed Odinga was in Embu mainly to remind people that current Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka is running on the CORD ticket for the same seat. Embu is near Musyoka’s hometown. During the stop it was Musyoka’s face that was plastered on cars and hung on walls. That, more than issues, was supposed to convince Kenyatta supporters to change their vote.

It also explains the prominent inclusion of Moses Wetangula in the CORD alliance, with his influence in the Luhya community – the second largest in Kenya.
The decision to run on personalities and coalitions is clearly a strategic gambit. But Odinga has the team in place and the resources to run a different kind of campaign. To send volunteers out to explain his platform in detail. To take advantage of technology and provide savvy voters with a wealth of information and encourage them to engage more with the campaign. To run the kind of issues-based effort the changes to the political system were clearly trying to inculcate.


Ahead of the election, advisors said Odinga was focusing on engaging voters, participating in radio call-in shows and holding town hall meetings. But as election day draws closer, the campaign has shifted exclusively to rallies. Though largely substance-free, they project strength and pressure supporters to come out and vote.

It’s a strategy they’re convinced will work. And despite the changes to the system, it likely will. There has not been enough change to erase the notion that voting is an ethnic affair, even in an electorate that is demanding details.

In the aftermath of the country’s first-ever presidential debate earlier this month, polls tipped Kenyatta and Odinga as the night’s victors. The same continued on their second debate on 25th Feb 2013. While the two got the most screen time, they stuck largely to the platitudes they have been issuing at campaign rallies and in their literature.

On street corners in downtown Nairobi the following afternoon, though, it wasn’t Odinga and Kenyatta people wanted to talk about. It was Peter Kenneth. At a gathering of vendors, civil servants and students, calling itself the People’s Parliament, they were raving about Kenneth, the businessman turned politician, who used the debate to speak with precision about a range of issues and ask pointed questions of his opponents.
Viewers were impressed, but no one was planning to vote for him. The reason being that they don’t believe he has a real chance of winning. A vote for Odinga or Kenyatta felt like more of a guarantee of victory – even if that victory doesn’t necessarily come with the policies the voter is looking for.

Still, the chatter about Kenneth could signal the beginning of the end of the kind of campaign Odinga is running. If in five years voters find little has changed, they might start to ask more of a candidate than where he is from and who is in his alliance. A sparkling debate performance could then deliver more than a bit of street corner kudos.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Why The Next pope Should be African


26 years of my  life, i have met only four atheists in Africa. We Africans seem naturally networked to religion. All meetings — on politics, sport and even business — begin with a prayer. God is invoked on every occasion, private or public. Religion is comfortably woven into daily life. Amid the current economic boom that most African countries are enjoying, huge new numbers of churches are being built, some of them vast halls.

The Catholic Church, the largest Christian denomination, is part of the fabric of all African societies. Its schools, community centers and health clinics are trusted far more than state ones and often closer to the people. In wars in Africa it can be  found that Catholic parishes become refuges in which food and medicine are provided — like the monasteries in the chaos of early medieval Europe.

The priests, nuns and church workers who run them are often the best informed about what is happening and the most committed to the local community, unlike foreign aid agencies, which are forced to pull out when there is danger.The Catholic Church in Europe used to be like that, part of the warp and weft of society. And if it wanted to become so again, it should send for an African Pope.

The numbers and the zeitgeist dictate that the next Pope should come from Africa. The percentage of practicing Catholics in Europe and North America has declined steeply. According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Centre, since the 1960s four American-born Catholics have left the Church for every new member. In contrast the number of Catholics in Africa has grown from 55 million in 1978 to more than 150 million today. By 2025 that figure is expected to be 230 million. In the past five years, the number of men training to be Catholic priests in Europe and America has fallen by 10 per cent. In Africa it has risen by more than 14 per cent.

African history is largely untroubled by religious wars. Wherever religious wars are reported in Africa the cause is usually a dispute over land rights involving two communities that happen to be of different faiths. Religion per se is rarely the cause. That traditional tolerance however is now under pressure – not from atheism – but from externally-funded, exclusive fundamentalist religions in the form of Wahabi Islam exported from Saudi Arabia and evangelical Christian fundamentalism funded from the United States.

In Europe and the US the Church has become self and sex-obsessed, out of touch with modern views on sexuality and the rights of individuals and discredited by its failure to face up to its child-abuse scandals — the inevitable product of a celibate priesthood. That has undermined its credibility.
In Africa, where polygamy is still accepted, many priests have wives and children but that is often an open secret, not an issue that seems to trouble their communities.

Spiritual leaders have more pressing and essential issues to confront. In a rich continent full of poor people, death and disease are never far away. At a national level, Catholic leaders are respected and trusted when they speak out on social and economic justice — which many of them do with far more passion and credibility than their Western counterparts.

Would an African pope change the Church’s attitude to homosexuality? Highly unlikely but on social justice, both local and international, expect a far more forthright and vigorous voice. Above all an African pope could bring a revitalizing spiritual enthusiasm and passion. There are 16 African cardinals to choose from — though in theory the cardinals do not have to choose one of their number. The names of Cardinals Francis Arinze of Nigeria and Peter Turkson of Ghana have been mentioned.

The last two Popes have tried to restore — even recreate — the Church as a conservative, European-centred institution, maintaining all the trappings of a secretive and authoritarian ecclesiastical monarchy.
An African Pope would be freed from this baggage. He could restore the Church’s universal vision by moving out of the Vatican and bequeath its magnificent — but almost exclusively European Renaissance — treasures to the world. 

He could then rebase the spiritual, emotional and geographical centre of the Church somewhere closer to a crossroads of modern humanity, a region where Judaism, Christianity and Islam began, a place where religion is most intensely felt, where the destiny of humanity itself may be forged: Jerusalem.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Mali...The Worst is Yet to Come



Retaking the north was the easy part. Now Mali faces guerrilla attacks, reportedly increasing cooperation between rebel groups, ‘the Tuareg problem’, and a divided government.
Early on during the French intervention which began in January 2013, many journalists in the international press were quick to note that Islamist militants had just “melted away” into the vast desert regions of northern Mali. As French jets attacked key strongholds, hundreds of Islamist fighters prepared convoys, which would escort leaders, weapons and fighters away from major towns.

Eye witness accounts confirmed suspicions that the militants’ departure was “orderly” and well-prepared. Their planned withdrawal may indicate their clear intention to redefine the nature of the conflict in Mali on their terms. Indeed, in a document allegedly left behind by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Timbuktu, a senior commander admits that an international intervention would exceed the group’s capability and that they ought therefore to retreat to their “rear bases” for the time being.

Recent events have also shown that local and international troops should prepare for increased resistance and a protracted campaign. Malian soldiers faced the first wave of attacks when various suicide bombers targeted Malian army bases and checkpoints in the city of Gao. A day later, two militants (one Arab and one Tuareg) were intercepted with explosive belts strapped to their bodies. Malian troops were also tested by a significant counter offensive led by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) in the same city on 10 February.

As Mali’s northern provinces become more secure, Islamist militants will increasingly engage in targeted attacks, using asymmetric warfare to test international troops and regain the upper hand. The caves and mountains of the Adrar des Ifoghas region, for example, are ideal locations for militant groups to hide and prepare hit and run operations.

Another worrying development in recent weeks has been allegedly increasing cooperation between Islamist militant groups across West Africa. Locals in Timbuktu claim Nigeria’s rebel group Boko Haram had training camps in the city. A flyer from another Nigerian militant group, Ansaru, was apparently discovered in Gao in the abandoned home of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the leader of the group believed to be behind the In Amenas attack on a gas plant facility in Algeria. And further suggestions have been made that Boko Haram militants might be using Chad as a rear base to prepare attacks. Chad has sent 1,800 men to fight alongside French and African troops in Mali.

Chad and other fragile states across the Sahel will struggle to police their highly porous borders as heavily armed gunmen move freely across them. The threat Islamic militancy poses to regional stability and beyond cannot be overstated. Mali’s neighbours face a direct threat from militants spilling over. Niger, for example, has agreed to allow the US to deploy drones from its airspace to help police its vast desert regions.
With over 4,000 French ground troops stationed in Mali, the number and size of their base camps growing by the day, and a deteriorating security climate, French forces are unlikely to fully withdraw from the region any time soon.

The deteriorating security climate will have an important effect on Western companies operating there. The tragic hostage crisis in In Amenas prompted security audits among Western companies throughout the region. Policymakers are already urging firms to assess, review and rethink security at their facilities in order to adapt to the mobile nature of these militant groups. French Special Forces have already begun securing vital uranium mines in Niger.

Back in Bamako, the alleged alliances developed over the years between the political elite, smugglers and drug dealers greatly undermined the country’s stability and development. More importantly, Mali and other states in the region will have to address seriously what some are now calling ‘the Tuareg problem’. This will require dialogue and political will to curb marginalisation and stigmatisation from which they and other minority ethnic groups suffer throughout the Sahel.

But divisions at the highest levels of the Malian state hinder Bamako’s ability to adequately address the concerns of Tuareg groups in the north. More recently, differences between pro- and anti-coup factions within the army led to outright clashes in Bamako. The Malian army has also used the French intervention to issue arrest warrants against Tuareg leaders and brush aside their demands. Malian troops are believed to have actively participated in reprisals against local Tuareg and Arab populations in the north. This behaviour, if it is not curbed, will only stoke the flames of ethnic tension.

Mali’s challenges require a multi-dimensional approach, which looks beyond simplistic interventionist agendas. The real roots of the current crisis have been overshadowed by the dominant “war on terror” narrative presented in the media. Beyond the restoration of order and some form of stability, Mali requires responsible and legitimate leadership capable of negotiating long term political solutions. 

The interim civilian government in Bamako alongside civil society and international actors should use the brief respite afforded to it by the presence of foreign troops to address the endemic corruption and legitimate grievances, which lie at the roots of this multifaceted crisis.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Africa Doesn't Need Rescuing, Just a Square Deal



Nobody disputes the charge that Africa’s political leaders are often responsible for the continent’s troubles, says Sudanese-born business tycoon Mo Ibrahim. But he argues that Western governments and corporations could do much more to redress the unfair practices that hinder Africa’s economic development

Images of Africa have long been of a continent mired in conflict, poverty and squalor. Conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Sudan, or poor governance in countries like Zimbabwe, have dominated reporting of Africa. There’s no denying that there are many issues facing our continent, but this picture is nevertheless reductive; it picks the failings of some corrupt regimes, and civil wars or genocide elsewhere to create a toxic mix which pollutes all countries in Africa. This is like claiming that all Europeans are guilty of “ethnic cleaning” on the evidence of what happened in the former Yugoslavia. Yes, some African countries are failed states, but let us always remember that Africa is 53 countries and most of them are peaceful and agreeable places.

Some fantastic progress has been made across Africa. Last year, the annual Ibrahim Index of African governance produced by  Mo Ibrahim Foundation showed that governance had improved in two-thirds of African countries. Another core initiative of the Foundation is the Ibrahim Prize for excellence in leadership in Africa. It awards over $7m to former executive heads of state or government who have demonstrated their commitment to advancing their countries and improving the quality of life for their citizens, while at the same time avoiding corruption and stepping down when they should.

The prize has been  awarded  twice, first to Joaquim Chissano, former President of Mozambique, and then to Festus Mogae, former President of Botswana. If we look at these two along with men like Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela, we can see the calibre of leadership that Africa is capable of producing. 
Joaquim Chissano led his country out of conflict and established multi-party politics and a growing economy. Festus Mogae consolidated the democracy that had been built by his predecessors in Botswana and rolled out one of Africa’s most successful HIV prevention, treatment and care programmes, as well as successfully managing the country’s diamond reserves for the benefit of Botswanans.

And they have continued to contribute to public life on leaving office; President Chissano is working as the UN’s envoy to bring an end to conflict in northern Uganda and also to the political impasse in Madagascar. President Mogae has been appointed as a special envoy for climate change as well as presiding over the newly established Coalition for Dialogue on Africa. Both these men, and many that came before them, show that the new generation of African leadership is capable of solving Africa’s problems.

Sustainable solutions to these problems will only come from within. Our international partners can support us and provide much-needed resources and guidance, but only we Africans hold the keys to our future prosperity. So the question we should be asking ourselves is, how Africa can rescue itself. Only victims need others to rescue them, and Africa is not a continent of victims.

Good governance is the cornerstone of development. I learned in the private sector that companies need effective management to succeed. Equally, for nations to develop successfully, governments must provide public services to their citizens and ensure that they live safe from persecution, crime and discrimination. Governments must establish an enabling environment for the private sector to create jobs, and governments cannot consider the public purse to be a private bank account. Government is responsible for delivering services, but it is up to civil society to be vigilant and ensure that governments work towards these aims. A strong civil society that monitors and increasingly demands more from government is vital to improving governance on our continent. As with economics, it is demand that stimulates supply.

That is why the Mo Ibrahim Foundation  produces the annual Ibrahim Index of African Governance to track governments’ performance across sub-Saharan Africa.It aims to provide civil society and citizens with a tool that allows them to monitor over time the progress of their government. It looks at almost a hundred indicators that measure what governments are obliged to deliver to their citizens, and defines   governance in a new way – as the services that should be provided to citizens. It does not  measure inputs – including aid or natural resource revenues – or government promises and commitments; instead it has chosen to measure the impact of government activities on the lives of citizens.

That  foundation is  not alone. Across the continent many other organisations are working to strengthen and empower civil society, to monitor government activities and to hold their leaders to account. The electoral tragedies in Zimbabwe and Kenya last year illustrate how Africans are standing up and demanding that their votes be counted and their voices heard. Africans will no longer stand for the subversion of their democratic processes and African civil society has in many cases become vocal enough and powerful enough to demand change.

Alongside this focus on improving governance in Africa, we must also put pressure on our leaders to encourage regional integration. Many small and landlocked African countries will never become serious players in the global economy without increased co-operation within their own region. The current system of haphazard, overlapping regional integration is proving largely ineffective, and this severely hampers the ability of African countries to compete in international markets.

Africa’s 967m people are divided into 53 countries, with all the replicated bureaucracy and currency exchange issues this entails. China, with 1.3bn people, is just one country; and even Europe with some 500m in the EU’s population often functions on the international stage as a single bloc. If the small and diverse nations of Africa do not come together they will never be able to integrate properly into the world economy, and so will not reap the benefits of our globalised world.

Economic integration needs to be backed up by an increase in intra-regional trade; less than 4% of our trade is between African countries, compared to over 70% in Europe and over 50% in Asia. The International Monetary Fund has credited Asian intra-regional trade as the main factor behind Asia’s export boom and its strong economic growth. There’s no reason why Africa, with its huge and often untapped markets, cannot follow the same path.

All these are issues that have to be tackled by Africans, but our international partners, particularly in Europe, also have an important role to play in our development. The debate over the failure of international aid to produce development and the current financial crisis mean that the arguments against development assistance are gaining weight. But the argument should not be about aid or no aid – no one can question aid’s many successes and the importance of aid as a safety net for those who would otherwise be left to suffer.

The argument should instead be focused on how to get the most effective results out of aid, both for the recipients and for a donor country’s tax-payers. To my mind, aid is best focused on infrastructure – the bridges, roads, internet cables and power stations that will help our economies to grow and allow us to trade more easily with each other. Accompanying this should be a focus on what I like to call the software of development – health and education. If aid satisfies basic governance conditionality and is directed at these vital areas, Africa will have a far greater chance of progressing.

There are other essential areas where our partners in Europe should follow their rhetoric with action and to live up to their commitments to alleviate poverty. For too long there has been international dismay at the state of governance in Africa; corruption and at times a complete lack of accountability among African governments are blamed for all of Africa’s ills. It’s often hard to rebut this argument, but no one can claim that Africans have a monopoly on governance failures. The current financial crisis offers a perfect example as it was poor governance in the banking sector that brought so many of the world’s great economies to the brink of collapse.

And while the international community is quick to pounce on African leaders for governance failures, it seems less enthusiastic about examining its own role in the flight of African assets. European and American companies pay bribes to government officials in return for mining concessions or other advantages, and it is in European and American bank accounts that resources looted from Africa are kept. And yet these countries were slow to enact legislation to make overseas bribery illegal, and now it exists there has been limited enforcement of the rules. Then there is the well-known but still unresolved problem of trade barriers.

If African products are forced to compete in markets that are skewed towards European and American producers, Africans are not being given a fair chance to develop. The fiercely debated issue of trade barriers speaks directly to the question of whether there is a genuine international commitment to Africa’s development. It’s an issue that is highlighted by events in, Sudan, and its western state of Darfur. 

Poorly equipped and under-resourced African Union (AU) troops have been trying to protect civilians. While the AU is providing soldiers to police the conflict, the United Nations and the international community are tasked with providing the resources and equipment that are widely viewed as inadequate. It is just one more example of the way that limited resources are endemic to international peacekeeping operations, particularly in Africa, and always with disastrous results.

Africa does not need to be rescued and never will be. But we do need the international community to live up to its commitments and honour its promises, whether that be on corruption and stolen assets, on aid, trade or conflict resolution and peacekeeping.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Africa’s Borders:Unprotected & Blocking Trade & Development


Africa inherited its borders – they were not created by those who live within them, are divided by them or who cannot easily trade across them.  The many straight lines on the map (or even the wiggly ones that follow rivers or other features) are one of the banes of the continent.  On the one hand they artificially lump together peoples whose histories were not the same and who, while not naturally or primordially hostile, would have chosen different paths to nationhood. On the other, they divide peoples across two or even a multitude of states.

These borders were set by colonial rulers but then sanctified at its formation by the Organization of African Unity in 1963 and later reaffirmed by the African Union (AU).  They created multicultural, multilinguistic and multiethnic nation states – just like the treaties after the First World War and the fall of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires created the artificial and doomed state of Yugsoslavia and those in eastern and central Europe whose borders are still bones of contention.  Africa is the same.

There are over 100 continuing border disputes between states in Africa – from the Ethiopian-Eritrean border (constantly in danger of setting off a new conflict between uneasy neighbours) to the current Malawi-Tanzania row over the demarcation of the lake border between them (exacerbated, as are so many global conflicts, by the lure of oil).  Borders are also blocks to economic development, bringing with them border controls, tariffs, customs arrangements (COMESA, ECOWAS and other regional groups notwithstanding).

Africa’s share of world trade is tiny—only 3 percent in 2009, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, but trade between nations is miniscule, making up only 10 percent of total trade. This stands in stark contrast to 22 percent between countries in South America, and 50 percent between those in Asia.  Borders and pointless bureaucracy, combined with the corruption that goes with them, inhibit inter-African trade.

Africa’s borders are even more problematic than those in contested areas of Europe, Asia and Latin America.  Whilst they are usually porous and almost impossible for weak state institutions, small armies and poorly funded police forces to control, they often divide peoples (especially nomadic ones like the Tuareg) and form huge obstacles to trade. Also, corruption and the desire of people to buy and sell goods across borders create endless opportunities for smuggling, tax evasion and cross-border crime – not just problems in themselves, but often providing the funding for insurgency and revolt.

Mali is a perfect example of this.  From its independence in 1960 it has had to accommodate the aspirations of peoples with different languages, cultures, economic and social lifestyles who are geographically separated by huge distances, but are citizens of one state. From its birth, Mali and its neighbours had to accommodate or crush the aspirations to autonomy or statehood of the Tuareg – split across Mali, Algeria, Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Libya.  The Tuareg lived by trade across the Sahel region and across the Sahara to North Africa.  

No one state could, even if they had wanted to, provide an autonomous homeland within an existing state, given that the Tuareg are widely dispersed and their aspirations not limited to the populations within a single state.  The Tuareg repeatedly launched rebellions in Mali and Niger.  These were defeated, but the spark of resistance was never fully extinguished.

The Tuareg were used by Gadaffi in Libya as part of his Islamic Arab Legion, which fought and was defeated in Chad in the 1980s and was made part of Libya’s armed forces – effectively mercenaries helping keep him in power and interfere in the affairs of neighbouring states. Libya under Gaddafi backed rebellions by the Tuareg in the Sahel – armed them, financed them and trained them. 

When he fell, they and other non-Libyan fighters were among the major targets for the militias who, with Western help, overthrew and killed him.  The foreign fighters fled – many Tuareg to Niger, where most were rapidly disarmed.  Others went back to Mali and kept hold of their weapons. They linked up with Islamic groups including many Tuareg who lived by smuggling in the unpoliced north of the country.

The Tuareg launched their rebellion seeking to establish an independent state – ‘Azawad’ – through the MNLA movement, aided by the Libyan weapons they had brought with them.  The rest, as they say, is history.  The MNLA had initial successes, was then dominated and marginalized by Islamist movements and those movements are now being pushed back into the desert by French, Malian and Chadian troops.
 But they will just melt back into the arid, remote and thinly populated Sahel/Sahara with a wealth of porous borders to cross and re-cross to avoid counter-insurgency operations and establish new bases.  Mali has a 1,376 km border with Algeria, 1,000km with Burkina Faso, 2,237km with Mauritania and 821km with Niger.  Even with French support, US drones and the cooperation of neighbouring states they cannot police this whole area.

The openness of borders and the security issues they raise are huge. No solution to the Tuareg issue and the future of Islamist movements (whether linked to al-Qaeda or not) will be possible without cross-border cooperation and security, but that is almost impossible to achieve even if all states were willing to cooperate.  And this then creates all sorts of tangled links between different conflicts.  Islamist fighters from Mali have already been reported as reaching as far as northern Darfur in their search for a new haven. 

Northern Darfur borders the Central African Republic, where a peace deal has temporarily ended fighting, but where elements of the rebel movement funded their military campaign through access to gold mines near the border with Darfur.  Resources like this and the possibility of shifting alliances with local groups are another lure for stateless military groups able to traverse borders with ease.

This lack of border controls, security and policing not only lead to major problems for governments (insurgency, smuggling etc) but also for local peoples.  The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) of Joseph Kony has been pushed out of Uganda and moves between Central African Republic, DR Congo, South Sudan and Uganda killing, looting and abducting people to serve as soldiers, porters or sex slaves.  It survives through these depredations and has now, as have the Janjaweed in Sudan’s Darfur province, moved into the lucrative ivory poaching business. 

The LRA and Janjaweed are said to have killed elephants in DRC, CAR and Cameroon and transported the ivory to Sudan for smuggling abroad – so environmental damage can be added to the list of problems caused by weak African borders.
There is clearly no easy, fast or obvious solution to the border issue.  States may have strongmen in charge but they have weak institutions and limited power over remote areas. They cannot police huge borders which are often the focus of conflict, irredentism, separatism and smuggling – especially when they often lack legitimacy in these areas through political and economic policies which marginalize them. 

What is necessary is a continent-wide approach to borders, for the African Union to go beyond treating the symptoms of conflict through intervention forces, peacekeeping or attempts at peacemaking and look seriously as the body representing the continent at the long-term future of borders and people constrained, split or made almost stateless by them.  A massive, holistic approach is necessary but sadly the will is lacking, as proved by the way that the African Renaissance and NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) came to nought after the initial fanfare.

Monday, February 11, 2013

The Pope Resigns: Do Africans give a damn?


The resignation of the pope feels like it should be a profound event, and for some in Africa it certainly is. Those who see Benedict XVI as a blessed successor of Saint Peter, as well as those directly affected by the church's sexual-abuse scandal, are likely to find deep relevance in the pope's decision. 

But for most Africans, even most Catholics, the pope's resignation is more likely to be viewed like a modern-day royal abdication—an act of symbolic importance, with little actual impact.

A disparate group of people call themselves Catholic in Africa, but it appears that many of them long ago shed their fealty to the Vatican and its domestic representatives. 

The issue of birth control presents the most obvious example of this banal heresy. If it was not clear before, Africa's bishops have left no doubt about the church's opposition to most forms of birth control. 

Yet surveys show that a large majority of Catholic women use some form of contraception frowned upon by the church, and over 80% of Catholics find birth control "morally acceptable", according to Gallup.

The gap between the church's hierarchy and its flock in Africa runs much wider. According to an earlier Gallup poll, majorities of Catholics found divorce, pre-marital sex,  out-of-wedlock births, the death penalty and extra marital relations morally acceptable. 

Church doctrine, of course, says otherwise. Even those who said they went to church regularly were more liberal in their views on these issues than non-Catholic church attendees. In a more explicit criticism of the church's leaders in Africa, most Catholics say they would prefer their bishops talk about social justice than things like abortion.

Some might argue that the people responding to these surveys aren't true Catholics. But such an argument implies that the number of Africans leaving the Catholic Church is larger than previously thought. 

Earlier studies indicated that about a third of Africans who were raised Catholic had left the faith to become Born agains. This means that roughly 10% of all Africans are former Catholics," concluded the study. Whether you believe these studies are  under counting or Africa's Catholics lack obedience, it's bad news for the Vatican.

The odd thing is, African Catholics have a positive view of this rather dogmatic pope. In fact, 74% say they are satisfied with his leadership. This suggests that the Vatican's primary problem in Africa is not so much disobedience as it is irrelevance.

Like the Queen of England, the idea of a pope is quaint, even popular. But the pronouncements of these elderly white men from Europe, surrounded by similarly frail and pale figures, have carried increasingly less weight with the eclectic mix of Africans who call themselves Catholic and are slowly redefining the faith.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Oil in Uganda: The Curse Within



Large-scale Ugandan oil deposits, described as Africa’s biggest on-shore oil discovery in 20
years, were announced in 2006 and subsequently proven by the drilling of numerous successful test wells. Estimated reserves are about 2.5 billion barrels, a figure that may increase with new exploration and a projected maximum daily production rate of some 125,000 barrels per day (bpd) – though some place this as high as 200,000 bpd. These figures mean that Uganda stands to join the ranks of mid-sized oil producers, roughly comparable to Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Chad and Trinidad and Tobago. Proven reserves place it in 40th place in global rankings.

Current reserves are estimated to have the potential to generate over $2 billion in annual
Revenue for more than 20 years. To put this into context, according to the OECD, Uganda’s
State revenues for 2012–13 are estimated to be $4.5 billion, and receipts of development aid
for 2010 were $1.7 billion.2 So while the contribution of oil to the economy will be considerable, it will not be immediately transformative – it is not on the same scale, for instance, as the $340 billion in oil revenues collected by Nigeria since it began production. Nevertheless it will present significant opportunities, and if used well can usher Uganda into a new era of economic prosperity.

However, Uganda’s oil is difficult to access and challenging to transport and process. It
will require significant investment – estimated at $10 billion – to develop its oil fields and
many years to come on-stream. When commercial volumes of oil were confirmed in 2006, it
was hoped that production could begin by 2009. To date, production has yet to commence,
delayed by disputes between the government and oil companies, controversies over the terms
of production-sharing agreements (PSAs) between them, and disputes over taxation. It is not
expected that commercial-scale production will begin until 2016, and delays to beginning
development of the field could push this back still further. Full production will not be reached
until the early 2020s at least.


There have been some steps forward in 2012, notably the signing of agreements with new
Players in Uganda’s oil – Total and the China National Overseas Oil Corporation, which
have taken one-third stakes in the oil blocks as partners with Tullow, the company that
has played the central role in the development of Uganda’s oil to date – key legislation put
before parliament, and agreement for the construction of an oil refinery. However, actual
On-the-ground development remains stalled.


Technical challenges: rising expectations or time to prepare?
Uganda has waited a long time for oil. The first explorations took place in the 1950s, and were re-launched in the late 1980s, but plans for exploitation were interrupted by political and economic circumstances, as well as the difficulty and expense of extracting oil from a land-locked country.

Uganda’s oil is also of a type that is difficult and costly to process and transport. The region where oil is found, the Albertine Graben, will need significant investment in facilities before oil can begin to flow. In contrast to Ghana, where light oil and off-shore facilities meant that revenues have begun to flow into the country just three years after the beginning of development, Uganda will need a decade and more than $10 billion of investment to reach peak production.

Thus, though debate around oil management has been intense in Uganda in recent years, the start of full production remains relatively remote. Expectations are high that oil will bring immediate improvements to the country, but this will not happen. Therefore the first challenge that Uganda needs to meet is to manage the expectations of the population, politicians and stakeholders alike.

Unless this is undertaken, there is a real risk that the debate around oil becomes clouded by
Rumour, disappointment and anger – for instance, if it is felt that revenues are not being shared fairly, or that oil companies are benefiting more than the population. A 2012 survey revealed that more than 50% of Ugandans believe that none of the oil revenues, or only a small proportion, will be used for the benefit of all.

There is also a serious risk that the debate on management of oil becomes defined by immediate political dynamics. Oil will be a vital feature of Uganda’s politics and economy for decades. A future generation will take over the mantle of leadership from President Yoweri Museveni before the oil era comes to a close, but the decisions taken now will do much to secure Uganda’s economic future as a regional and global player, and will shape the legacy of the current generation of leaders.

So it is incumbent on stakeholders to transcend day-to-day divisions, and instead work
Collectively to ensure the greatest long-term benefit flows to the population. And the relatively slow pace of oil development means Uganda has the luxury of time for a real national debate on oil. Unlike countries that move swiftly into production, it can ensure that all sectors of society have the chance to be heard, and that the necessary preparations are undertaken. Oil is a technical business, but it is social and political issues that will decide if it is a blessing or curse for Uganda.


Much has been written about the impact of oil, gas and other natural resources on the countries that produce them. It does not make for happy reading. There is a long list of counties that have been damaged by the discovery and exploitation of oil, from Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Gabon and Sudan, to Turkmenistan and Venezuela. The symptoms of the ‘resource curse’ have been forensically detailed.5 They include the erosion of politics and increased popular alienation from the state, more corruption and economic distortions. The result is that, despite greater income and GDP growth, the development of non-oil sectors slows or is reversed by the overvaluation of currencies, worsening social outcomes and rampant unemployment.

Environmental damage can harm livelihoods and social structures alike, notably in resource-producing areas themselves. The cumulative impact can be deepening social and political divisions that can, ultimately, lead to conflict.
These effects are widely recognized. An array of policy responses has been elaborated to
tackle them, with an industry dedicated to translating hard-learned lessons into best-practice
guidelines.



Above all, it is the governance conditions in any given country at the time
exploitation begins that determine whether resources will be a blessing or a burden.6 Divided
countries and those with authoritarian leaders, weak institutions or significant incidence of
corruption and patronage will more than likely be dragged further downwards by significant
resource flows. Conversely, well-governed and relatively unified states will be able to avoid the pitfalls and maximize the benefits.

Good governance and natural resources

Governance, therefore, is vital. Reflecting this, much of the ‘resource curse’ literature offers
guidance on how to build an effective management framework for natural resources, insulating governance from the damage that resource revenues can bring. Economic distortions can be avoided through the careful control of spending, notably through the establishment of sovereign wealth funds or imposition of binding rules for saving. Independent oversight bodies, a clear role for civil society and educating the public can help achieve transparency in accounting for financial
flows. The list is long.

There is a great deal of value that can be drawn from this accumulated
analysis and experience, particularly for stakeholders in countries, such as Uganda, facing newly discovered reserves and the hopes and challenges these bring. Political mobilization and hostility, particularly if exacerbated by unscrupulous politicians or perceptions of inequality – Uganda’s people are more united than divided by their shared experiences of conflict.

Therefore, despite social, political and economic frustrations, there is currently little willingness among Ugandans to see a return to violence. As Stefan Lindemann writes, a new civil war ‘is widely considered unlikely’.17 There is also a common desire to see progress towards economic growth, notably in the creation of jobs and addressing poverty.18 Though Uganda faces clear challenges, notably in managing its latent divisions, a robust framework of shared objectives puts the country in a strong position as it enters its oil-producing era.
A capable civil service Likewise, Uganda is able to call on a capable and effective civil service.

The quality of the country’s administration was badly damaged during the war years. Corruption is a serious problem, as is the overstaffing of many layers of the administration, particularly at local levels. But the successes of the 1990s and early 2000s have left a legacy of relative administrative strength across many departments. Uganda scores in the 34th percentile in the World Bank government effectiveness index, better than Africa’s large oil producers – Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, for instance – and comparable to its neighbours in the East African Community. It ranks 98th out of 142 countries in the World Economic Forum Global Competitive Index – only marginally lower than successful oil producers such as Trinidad and Tobago (82nd).

However, the overall assessment carried out by the World Bank has Uganda’s overall regulatory quality declining from approximately the 50th to the 60th percentile of global rankings between the late 1990s and the present day – a small but significant reduction in overall effectiveness. Uganda also has specialists in the oil industry. The relatively slow development of the oil sector has allowed sector-specific knowledge to build up. This is particularly the case for the Petroleum Exploration and Production Department in the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, which has received significant government investment and has been instrumental in successfully managing the exploration phase of oil development.

In addition, Ugandan stakeholders – from parliamentarians to journalists – have been able to learn about oil. The NGO sector is also well developed. But while the formal structures of government in Uganda are robust, in many ways real decision-making bypasses these official channels. The executive exercises strong influence over some key policy areas, including oil, to some extent bypassing line ministries. And in addition, Uganda’s decentralization programme has devolved some power to the local level, where a lack of capacity has resulted in poor-quality management, and widespread allegations of corruption and inefficiency. These dual dynamics, of power simultaneously moving upwards to the executive  and downwards to local levels risk isolating and undervaluing the specialist expertise built up in government, particularly on oil.

Strong social voices.

Despite the legacy of social cohesion from the shared experience of conflict, Uganda’s fractious history also means that there are few groups outside formal politics with a strong voice in shaping a national conversation. While the National Resistance Movement (NRM) began as an inclusive organization that united much of the country’s disparate society, it became a political party on the restoration of a multiparty system in 2005, one of a wide range of active political organizations.

Uganda has had two competitive multiparty elections, in 2006 and 2011, and although there has yet to be a democratic transition of power, the principle and practice of democracy are increasingly entrenched. However, while this is positive, the central point for the good management of natural resources is that formal democracy is not enough. Political leaders everywhere are subject to intense pressures to maintain popular support or react to crises.

There is thus a perpetual temptation to use the revenue from natural resources to meet short-term goals rather than taking a long view. This is where strong voices outside politics can be vital, able to counsel caution and moderate the polarized debate that multiparty democracy often brings. Such voices are not fully developed in Uganda. The business community was decimated by the abuses of the Idi Amin era and the chaos of the war. Although private-sector development has accelerated in recent years, it has experienced infrastructural bottlenecks, notably in transport and power generation. Uganda ranks in 120th place in the most recent World Bank ‘Doing Business ‘survey, reflecting the considerable challenges, particularly infrastructural barriers, still faced by the private sector.

Traditional rulers, particularly those of Uganda’s constituent kingdoms, are extremely important and command both loyalty and respect. But their role in politics is indirect and limited, by law as well as custom. Likewise, media and civil society are well developed, but frequently are part of the political debate rather than standing above it. Churches and religious leaders are also important, but are divided along regional and political lines. Civil society will have a vital role to play in the successful management of Uganda’s oil, but does not yet have sufficient capacity to truly balance the views of government or opposition.

Widely understood spending priorities
Finally, though the Ugandan government has a number of development frameworks in place,
notably a high-profile National Development Plan, and more recently a draft ‘Vision 2040’, its decisions remain relatively opaque to many. The population is largely rural, and many are still poorly educated and therefore disengaged from national politics, despite sharp increases in the rates of literacy and education since the end of the war. Though the media are relatively strong, notably with a number of independent printed publications, the majority of Ugandans remain reliant on local radio stations of mixed quality and impartiality for their information.
Perhaps more importantly, decision-making, particularly around the allocation of money, is
often unclear even to the educated, urban elite.

As argued above, the power of the executive can undermine formal decision-making, notably on spending relating to defence, political campaigning or capital-intensive infrastructure projects. The president has made it clear that he intends to shape the use of oil-related investments. The purchase of fighter jets in 2011 – costing some $740 million
withdrawn from the Central Bank without the prior approval of parliament22 – or the use of $430 million in taxes from oil companies to fund a new hydro-electric dam at Karuma23 illustrate this pattern. The risk is that resource flows from the oil sector will be used piecemeal, with little public consultation and hence minimal popular buy-in.
Uganda’s starting point at the dawn of the oil era is therefore relatively positive.

The country has significant governance strengths that must be recognized, and that can offer a robust foundation for meeting the challenge of oil. But judged against the aspects of governance identified as key to the management of natural resources outlined above, there are also issues of concern.

Having sketched the starting point from which Uganda will move towards oil production, it is
possible to begin to trace how the impact of oil can best be managed to improve the country’s
chances of reaping meaningful long-term benefits, with particular reference to the four key
issues identified. The challenge is not just to ensure that oil does not undermine governance; it is also to identify ways in which oil could become a catalyst for strengthening it.

Recommendations for Better Oil Management

Transparency is a watchword of much literature on the resource curse. But why transparency is important is seldom spelled out. It is all too frequently seen as a goal in itself or as a mechanism to discipline government. Of course, transparency of budgeting and resource flows is a vital aspect of preventing corruption, which will be made all the more important by the influx of money that comes from oil production. It is also key to preventing ill-informed public opinion from driving government to use resources unwisely. As two analysts note: ‘In many cases, the discovery of oil and other resources creates unrealistic expectations about future income, leading to increases in current expenditure, often on large and impractical projects.

But transparency is also vitally important in maintaining social cohesion. Rumour flourishes in the absence of accurate, timely information. And rumour – of advantages given to certain sections of society or resources unfairly distributed – is the fuel of social division, particularly in a country with the latent social cleavages of Uganda. As the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) notes: ‘Affected communities and ordinary citizens often assume that the government and companies are trying to keep the resource wealth for themselves and are undermining the economic development of the country through corruption and mismanagement.’ So while Ugandans are currently unified by the imperative of avoiding conflict, and the shared goal of economic growth, there are real risks that this consensus will be put under considerable strain by oil revenues, particularly if communities feel that others are gaining more benefit.

Contract transparency
Unfortunately, the oil debate in Uganda has been marred by rumours and a lack of clear information. This has been the case particularly in relation to the production-sharing agreements signed by the government, and associated allegations of bribery.

Access to information
Access to information more generally can also be enshrined in law, covering more than just
contracts. It is here that EITI can play an important role. Launched in 2002, it has developed a methodology to impose a globally recognized standard on the publication of payments, bringing together companies, governments and civil society.30 there are currently 14 countries assessed as compliant with EITI principles, including Nigeria, Ghana, Mongolia and Azerbaijan, and a further 22 are candidates. In Liberia, EITI is credited as having enabled discussions between government and local communities to discuss issues of concern, and it has also helped the Cameroonian government build capacity in monitoring and managing industry. In Nigeria, EITI has led to audit reports that have ‘have placed immensely rich data and information in the public domain thereby strongly empowering civil society to hold government to account.’

Though Uganda has legally recognized the right of citizens to see information held by government, enshrined in the Access to Information Act (2005), this has not been fully operationalized, and is in any case contradicted by the provisions for confidentiality
of information envisaged in new oil-related legislation. Uganda has also in principle committed itself to EITI membership, but has not yet taken the necessary steps for inclusion.

Independent oversight mechanisms
Another option for ensuring transparency is the establishment of an independent body to exercise oversight of the sector, along the lines of Ghana’s Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) or Chad’s Collège de Contrôle. Ugandan legislation on oil production and revenue management currently before parliament does not foresee the creation of any form of independent accountability mechanism. Instead, oversight of production is given to the Petroleum Authority or the minister for energy, depending on the issue, and through them to parliament. Likewise, the Ministry of Finance is foreseen as having a pre-eminent role in management of resource flows, in conjunction with the Bank of Uganda. This brings clear risks that information about oil might become subsumed in the wider business of government or that disclosure of sensitive information is hampered.

Empowering experts: listening to specialist advice
There are experienced and capable technocrats in Uganda, both in the specialist oil and energy ministries, notably the Petroleum Exploration and Production Department, and in financerelated bodies. There are also impressive individuals in Ugandan civil society able to make positive contributions to oil management. Despite the steep learning curve, the slow pace of oil development will allow expertise to develop in Uganda, which has a relatively strong base and is moving in the right direction. The more important question is whether their voices will be heard.
The structure that has governed Uganda’s oil sector to date, run largely by the Ministry of Energy, has proved relatively effective, despite controversies over the detail of PSAs (see above). But, as Uganda moves towards production, this will be replaced by a new and much more extensive structure to complement the ministry’s role. And of course, increased revenues resulting from oil production, signing bonuses and related payments will pose an additional challenge to finance related structures.

Though some of the relevant legislation is still being debated, the Petroleum (Exploration,
Development and Production) Bill was passed in December 2012, and gives a clear indication
of the direction that Uganda’s leaders are likely to take. The 2012 legislation foresees the
establishment of an independent Petroleum Authority, charged with oversight of the sector in
exploration, development and production phases, and a National Oil Company (NATOIL).

The legislation proposes that NATOIL should ‘handle the state’s commercial interests’ and ‘manage the business aspects of state participation’ in oil. But the government retains clear overall control. The energy minister is foreseen as having final say on policy relating to production issues, including the issuing of licences, and the minister of finance on decisions related to the spending of resulting revenues. These will first flow into a holding account before being separated into a Petroleum Investment Reserve, managed by the Bank of Uganda, or allocated directly to the national budget, and therefore subject to normal budgetary oversight procedures, including parliamentary approval.

Ensuring impartial oversight
But though the formal decision-making structures envisaged seem relatively robust, there are some possible concerns over their design. First, the bills lay out a structure for oil management that gives a great deal of power to the relevant ministers, and by extension, the president, with little formal oversight from parliament – described in one report as ‘virtually nil’42 – or opportunity for challenge from specialists within the system. The Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Bill spells out the minister’s powers, including the issuing of licences, drafting legislation and developing regulations.

Independent financial advice
The risks of politicized decision-making are also clearly present in the proposed structure for
management of financial flows from oil. The model proposed by current draft legislation will see revenues from oil moved first into a holding fund and from there into either a Petroleum Investment Reserve (PIR), or directly into the government budget. The amount allocated to budgets or the PIR is to be decided annually, by the minister and parliament, according to a planned Allocation Act. There are some positive points in the current legislation. There are clear rules prohibiting the use of PIR funds as collateral for borrowing – which has been the route to the build-up of significant  debt in other oil producers in the past – and the minister is required to provide regular audited financial statements to parliament. The act also foresees the constitution of an Investment Advisory Committee (IAC) charged with advising on investment decisions.

This follows states such as Ghana, which set up a new investment advisory committee in early 2012, and Chile, where a cross-party financial advisory committee was created in 2007. But the IAC is envisaged as having a membership that is appointed and determined by the minister, which may limit its independence from government. A further option would be to engage an outside agency to take investment decisions; East Timor, for instance, has appointed the Bank for International Settlements to invest its oil surplus in government bonds.

Engage the population in spending decisions
Making the right decisions on how to spend or save oil revenues is vitally important. But this
is only half the picture. Given the stakes involved, the manner in which decisions are taken
is also extremely important, notably to ensure that a majority of ordinary Ugandans feel
involved in political decision-making, particularly around oil. However, recent survey data
have highlighted some issues of concern. Even though a majority of Ugandans say they trust
President Museveni, as well as their MP and local officials, 74% also said that politics and
government were too complicated for them to understand.

As noted above, more than 50% of Ugandans say that none of the oil revenues, or only a small proportion, will be used for the benefit of all.48 Unless steps are taken to bring the population on board with a collective vision for the spending of these revenues, divisions between the political elite and the majority of the population may widen. In technical terms, the most persuasive reason for this is the breakdown of the relationship between citizen and state – government access to resource revenues lessens the need to rely on tax receipts, progressively eroding the connection between people and state. Tax is currently estimated to make up just 13% of GDP, a low rate even in comparison with the rest of Africa, making Uganda particularly vulnerable to these effects. As one commentator has written about oil-producing states:

Set clear spending priorities
There is therefore a pressing need to implicate as much of the Ugandan population as possible in the overall direction the country is taking. One preliminary step would be to forge a legal link between oil revenues and specific development priorities, something not foreseen in current draft legislation. According to Revenue Watch, Currently the PRM chapter in the public finance bill does not offer guidance on how the money
that flows to the budget should be used. It does not make explicit that oil revenues should be
used for capital investments, nor does it link the investment priorities to long term national
development plans.

Uganda has already taken some positive steps. The government has elaborated a variety of
overarching development visions, from a five-year National Development Plan,51 intended to be the first of six, which has been simplified into a ‘citizen’s guide’ and translated into local languages, to the draft ‘Vision 2040’ set out by the National Planning Authority. There are also sector-specific development visions, including for the development of agriculture and trade. They provide a clear framework through which the development path that Uganda will pursue can be widely communicated and understood.

But all too often in the past, government plans have not been implemented, leaving the population confused by ad hoc decision-making. And though the government has established a communication department in the Ministry of Energy and has conducted public outreach, to date this has been on a relatively small scale. Unless the reasoning behind the allocation of resources is widely understood, public unhappiness with the government’s performance may lead to pressure on it for increased spending determined by short-term political priorities rather than long-term goals.

Botswana offers an interesting illustration. There, an explicit link was created between resource incomes – from diamonds – and spending decisions. The Botswana ‘Vision 2016’ development plan was formulated, in part, to ‘to create the conditions where all people can feel that they have some stake in both the present and the future’.52 Mineral revenues were reserved for capital projects, and all new projects, each of which had to be approved by parliament, had to be included in a National Development Plan. Botswana has been able to profit from its natural resources, recording one of the highest consistent growth rates in Africa, at the same time as maintaining its social cohesion. The involvement of the public in spending decisions has been one important factor in this success.

The importance of public consultation
However, even if spending is linked to clearly defined priorities, the decisions thus taken
need to be communicated to the public, and feedback mechanisms established to allow the
communication of popular views back into government. It is important to note that this is not the same as transparency – simple access to information is not enough to drive meaningful popular engagement. As one expert has pointed out: transparency is a necessary, but not sufficient component of informed public participation in a democracy. To have an active voice, the public, or at least a representative body of the public, needs to have a legitimate and formalised role overseeing and interacting with industry and government.

One way to do this is through regular public consultation. There are a number of examples of
public consultations related to the oil industry. In São Tomé and Príncipe, community meetings were held to allow civil society and the population an opportunity to discuss the impact of  oil and how revenues should be used. In 2012, Liberia’s national oil company launched a programme of national consultation on oil policy, which will see officials and civil society representatives visit all political sub-divisions of the country. Trinidad and Tobago offers another instructive example of an oil-producing state that has taken steps to strengthen the buy-in of the population to development programmes, in the context of booming oil-related spending.

Empower parliament
A second and more formal way of ensuring public understanding and buy-in is through elected representatives. The key institution is of course parliament. As the World Bank Institute has noted, ‘Parliaments are uniquely positioned to understand and monitor the effects of extractive industries on the citizens and act as a bridge between the government, private sector and civil society. ‘Uganda’s parliament has taken an active role in the debate on oil, notably since the institution of the 9th parliament after the 2011 elections. Most controversially, this included the establishment in late 2011 of an ad hoc committee on oil and gas, set up to investigate allegations of corruption around the signing of contracts with oil companies, which imposed a temporary moratorium on new agreements.

The parliament is currently working on legislation on oil production and public
finance, and, as noted above, passed the Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Bill (2012) in early December 2012. A Parliamentary Forum on Oil and Gas has also been set up, bringing together interested parliamentarians from all parties and regions to more effectively share information and communicate with government.

But the role parliament is able to play is perhaps somewhat lessened by the preponderance of
NRM members, along with popular reservations about how elections are conducted, allegations of corruption and the difficulties of clear communication between members and constituents. MPs may also lack sufficient specific knowledge on oil issues to fill the communication gap effectively. And, as noted, the role of parliament in the management of the oil sector foreseen under the current draft legislation may not place members at the centre of the debate. Of course, the Ugandan parliament approves both the national budget and individual policy areas, and it is important to note that Uganda’s position as an established formal democracy puts it in a relatively strong position. But oil will increase the stress on the system – and has a long track record of undermining governance. As one commentator has noted, ‘The heart of the resource curse is that resource rents make democracy malfunction.’

Listen to local voices
The need for real public understanding of spending decisions will perhaps be most acute in
managing local tensions. It is populations in the oil-producing region that will suffer the deepest and most immediate changes to their lives, and there is already a great deal of concern that they will not receive sufficient compensation for the impact that oil production will have. These tensions have already begun to emerge in Uganda, as reflected in lobbying conducted by the traditional rulers of the Bunyoro kingdom – which covers much of the oil-producing region – for the allocation of 20% of revenues leading to increased local demands.

The impact of oil production on local communities is predictable. The influx of money that
natural resources bring can distort local economies, raising the cost of living, accommodation
and land. Ghanaians in the oil-producing Western region are already concerned that prices
have risen beyond the reach of many, particularly in urban centres. There have been significant purchases of land by wealthy investors, leaving little for traditional agricultural production.

Primary production can also bring about significant environmental damage, which in turn can
hit traditional livelihoods, particularly farming and fishing, and newer income streams such as tourism. Ghanaian fishing communities have clashed with security forces protecting offshore installations, and have reported depleted fish stocks. The situation is made more difficult when the new industry generates few new jobs for local people. Oil, as a technical and complex industry, does not demand the kind of mass labour that mining does. In fact, estimates are that Uganda’s oil industry will directly create just 3,000 jobs.

Many will be taken by expatriates with the necessary specialist skills. The resulting unemployment can, in a context of increased scarcity caused by rising prices, lead to political protest and even armed mobilization – the experience of violence in the Niger Delta offers a worst-case scenario of environmental degradation and local resentment leading to chronic conflict. The importance of these local issues has been acknowledged by the Ugandan government, notably in the proposed allocation of 7% of oil royalties to the oil-producing region, though questions remain about what percentage of overall revenue will be made up of royalties,61 and how these funds will be spent.

In Chad, 5% of revenues were allocated to communities in oil-producing
regions, but have reportedly either not arrived or not been used effectively – one report states that only 3% of villages affected by production have seen benefits, despite the widespread disruption of agricultural production. Consultation is one way in which local tensions can be managed.

In Ghana, NGOs and donors have worked together to develop a framework bringing together local civil society, oil companies and government for regular consultations – allowing accurate information to be disseminated, questions to be asked, and local tensions dissipated. In Chad, a Framework for Consultation and Dialogue has been launched to bring together oil companies and affected communities. As noted above, initiatives run through EITI have also had success in opening space for local dialogue. These initiatives, though only nascent, also offer Uganda an interesting model for how local issues – from land to employment, environmental damage or the cost of living – could be addressed. Local content (defined as ‘local recruitment, training, purchases of local goods and services – that are designed to develop the industrial infrastructure and skills of the people in countries that host
oil and gas projects’) will also be vital.

The establishment of oil-specific training facilities, most importantly the Uganda Petroleum Institute, is a positive step towards building technical skills, key to ensuring that oil-related jobs are taken by Ugandans. But it will only result in the training of a comparatively small number of technical specialists, and cannot hope to match the demand for jobs, particularly among communities whose livelihoods have been directly affected by oil production.

The risks for Uganda of poorly understood spending decisions, both locally and nationally, are twofold. Most obviously, as highlighted above, the resulting popular disengagement from the political sphere increases the distance between the majority of the population and government, undermining the social contract and weakening the incentives for the governing elite to act for the long-term benefit of the majority. Secondly, in the absence of a widely understood, coherent programme of spending, all groups in society are likely to feel disadvantaged, particularly in a society with the latent ethnic and regional divides of Uganda, and to demand the ad hoc allocation of resources to meet their particular needs. As noted above, this could be particularly acute at the level of local communities in the oil-producing region.

The result could be increased inter-group tension, friction and even violence. The factors identified throughout this report are interrelated. A lack of transparency can increase
public discontent. The resulting pressure on policy-makers to meet expectations can lead to
spending on short-term or politically expedient projects rather that to meet long-term needs,
resulting in waste and increased public discontent.

The worst-case scenario for Uganda would be a downward spiral of popular confusion and unhappiness, a weakened economy, politically dominated management and deepening inter-group competition for a share of the take, particularly at a local level. It is a path that has been trodden by many oil-producing states, most notoriously perhaps Nigeria. Most Nigerians are significantly poorer today than they were at the start of the oil boom, despite the receipt of some $340 billion in revenues. Average incomes are less than one-third of what they were in 1980, and per capita GDP remains at about 1965 levels.

But Uganda has time on its side. It is unlikely that production will start before 2016, with full
capacity not reached until 2020 or later. Though oil has already begun to influence politics and society, the stresses that production and revenue flow will bring with them will not be fully felt for a decade. The debate on oil must move beyond the politics of the present.
Instead, lessons must be learned from those countries that have successfully managed natural
resources, as well as those that have suffered as a result. Transparency matters if Uganda’s social cohesion is going to be maintained.

A well-informed national conversation on how to balance spending with saving is vital to the health of Uganda’s agricultural sector, which is key to a positive future. The need to protect technical advice from political influence is vital in Uganda, as it is for all governments. And a population that understands how revenues are being spent is more likely to work with government rather than against it, building a positive feedback mechanism between
People and the state that can act as a bulwark against future abuses.

Options for oil revenue management
Uganda therefore faces a difficult balancing act, between spending wisely – on agricultural
development, infrastructure and so on – and saving enough to maintain economic stability. In
other words, spend on developing agriculture, but ensure that progress is not undermined by
spending too fast. A mechanism that automatically allocates a proportion of income to savings can be extremely helpful in this regard, and could be key to the fulfilment of a development vision  that has agriculture at its heart.

Most commonly, this takes the form of some type of sovereign wealth fund. But the current draft of the relevant Ugandan legislation does not envisage the creation of a fund, or even the stipulation of a formal fiscal rule laying down in law the percentage of revenues to be invested. Instead, the division of funds between the regular budget and the Petroleum Investment Reserve will be decided on a year-by-year basis by the minister and parliament. There is a clear risk that political pressures will result in revenues being spent rather than invested. This would in turn risk macro-economic instability and currency appreciation – which would be fatal to agriculture-led development.

There are many options for how such a mechanism might function. The most common is
a sovereign wealth fund, such as the Norwegian Government Pension Fund, Trinidad and
Tobago’s Heritage and Stabilization Fund, or the Kuwait Investment Authority. Even Nigeria
has now instituted a stabilization fund, the sovereign wealth fund launched in 2011, though
recent controversy has highlighted the imperative of clear rules and broad political consensus in establishing a fund.40 Funds have a wide variety of roles, purposes and management structures, the most important of which are to protect oil revenues from political pressures, and act as a buffer against oil price volatility. Their reserves range from nearly $600 billion held by Norway to less than $3 billion in Trinidad’s fund.

There are also many options for binding fiscal rules that govern how much money is released to the budget annually, and how much withheld. In Norway, 100% of oil revenues are transferred to the fund, and budget spending is restricted to interest earned on the fund holdings; whereas Trinidad and Tobago deposits all earnings that exceed estimated oil revenues by more than 10% in its fund, and may withdraw from it if earnings drop more than 10% below estimated receipts. Nigeria’s sovereign wealth funds41 will be topped up to a given percentage of gross domestic product decided every two years. Ghana will save 30% of its oil revenues in Heritage and Stabilization funds. Balancing between spending and saving is a delicate and complex decision, particularly in a country with significant development needs.

Offering specific advice on the type of fund or fiscal control mechanism that might be most suitable for Uganda is beyond the scope of this report. But it is clear that how much to spend and how much to save is fundamental to generating sustainable growth, particularly on agricultural development. And real growth in the rural economy is vital to both overall  Ugandan development and the future governance of oil – it will allow the growth of an entrepreneurial class able to moderate the excesses of future generations of politicians. One of the key factors of Uganda’s post-conflict success has been  macroeconomic stability, a success that can contribute to  long-term success in oil management if it creates the conditions for the emergence of an agricultural commercial class. Oil can be the key to fuelling growth – but should not be allowed to disrupt it.

International lessons for Uganda
Norway, Chile, Botswana and Indonesia are often cited as countries that have been able to
exploit their natural resources sustainably and to the benefit of all. Despite the deep and obvious differences between them, there seem to be four broad points of commonality. They are;
  •     A widely shared commitment to stability and growth; 
  •         A capable and empowered cadre of technical advisers and specialists;
  •         Strong social constituencies able to moderate and inform political debate; and
  •         Widespread popular buy-in to spending priorities.


These four dynamics offer a useful starting point for discussion. First, how does Uganda measure up? Its painful past experiences of conflict and social division mean that there is a widespread commitment to a peaceful and harmonious future. Ugandans are likewise united by a shared desire for growth and prosperity. Uganda also has an effective civil service, and has built up a reservoir of knowledge on oil issues during the initial phases of oil exploration. Thus the first two dynamics may offer significant points of strength for the country.

The second two dynamics are perhaps less well developed. Though Uganda has an active and
vocal civil society and media, one less positive legacy of past conflicts has been to undermine the position of social actors able to offer a moderate, non-political perspective on questions of national importance, such as traditional leaders, religious authorities or business associations. Equally, while Uganda is now a multi-party democracy, its institutions and traditions are still relatively young. Combined with the reality of a scattered and largely rural population, this means that many may feel remote from the process of decision-making, and therefore not necessarily fully engaged in a shared vision for spending oil revenues.

So while Uganda in many ways has relatively strong foundations for meeting the challenges of the coming oil era, there are also areas in which progress is needed. More importantly, these four dynamics also offer a constructive lens through which to assess the options open to Uganda in managing its oil. It is here that lessons can be drawn from international experiences of natural resource management, through an assessment of the likely impact of  various policies on the four broad dynamics identified above.