Participatory post conflict recovery, contestation between theory and practice

1. Participatory post conflict recovery, contestation between theory and practice By Mpisi Sulayman BABIIHA PhD Student Gulu UNIVERSITY BSU 1 (2013-2015)

2. Introduction • The research is set in Acholi sub region, northern Uganda shortly after 20 years of the war between the government and rebels of Lord’s Resistance Army up to the present • After signing the ceasefire agreement in August 2006, events move quickly; and people who had lived under internal displacement for almost ten years are asked to go back home

3. But in the absence of their livelihoods assets which were all lost during the war, they had nothing to go back to except the land • As a stop gap, the government, working with her development partners gave priority to recovery of livelihoods assets and food security through a fairly new mode of engagement: participatory development

4. Problematisation • Although the concept of participatory development entered the development discourse in 1960s, it only came into policy and programming in 1980s by default under the Washington Consensus conditionalities to LDCs • The neo-liberalism drive of the Washington Consensus did not trust governments of LDCs to continue to manage development funds

5. They considered them to be undemocratic, inefficient, corrupt, and pursuing wrong economic policies • Donors thus transferred the role to Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) • NGOs had convinced donors they were closest to the grassroots and so could handle service delivery better than national governments, most of which were centralised

6. Thus, by engaging in people-centred, needs-based approach to development, NGOs became partners in the development project in LDCs • NGOs based on works of scholars such as Paulo Freire (1970s) - for the communist outlook - and Robert Chambers (1980s) - for the liberalism political economy - among others

7. However, as a concept, participatory development has since come under severe criticism for being fluid and ambiguous making it rather difficult to analyse both intellectually and in empirical terms • Yet the paradigm has now been extended to post conflict reconstruction since 2000s; • And the development discourse also shifted in favour of State-centred development planning through Poverty Reduction Strategy papers (PRSP)

8. Main Objective • To explore how post war characteristics of Acholi sub region influenced, or were influenced by the post war participatory recovery of sustainable livelihoods of rural communities • This was done through three extended cases (Gluckman 1940; Marcus 1995) of grassroots livelihoods projects in Awach and one in Purongo sub counties in Gulu and Nwoya districts, Acholi sub region.

9. Specific Objectives • To explore how principles of participatory development are applied in livelihood security projects in Awach and Purongo Sub-counties • To find out how actor perceptions of participatory recovery as embedded in sustainable livelihood projects in post war Awach and Purongo Sub-counties affect their capacity to deliver sustainable livelihoods

10. Significance • To contribute to the discourse on participatory post conflict recovery as a strategy for sustainable livelihoods • To make suggestions for policy and programming in post war recovery • To make suggestions on strengthening institutions that govern or influence pot war allocation of livelihoods assets

11. Principles of participation • Chambers’s (1994) characterisation of participation provides the foundation for most definitions of participatory development • That the people, especially the poor and vulnerable at the grassroots, whom development policy and projects are intended to benefit must be involved in such policy and projects so they can be empowered to achieve self reliance • Thus their needs rather than expert calculations must drive development policy

12. For Freire (1972), the ‘culture of silence’ which makes people complacent is the primary problem, hence peasants must be conscientised so they can gain their freedom • Conscientisation enables them to engage in dialogical relations with development professionals, hence they cannot be exploited • However, as Mosse (2005) puts it, in most LDCs the voice of the poor is quite absent; or the interests of outsiders and elites are concealed in policy at the expense of local people

13. Participatory recovery • Post war participatory recovery, in addition to empowerment, objectivises: • Reactivation of economic and social development; and • Creation of a peaceful environment that prevents relapse into violence (Barakat and Zyk 2009) • But its theory remains fairly underdeveloped with current literature largely being provided by World Bank and International Monetary Fund

14. In northern Uganda, post war participatory recovery came in form of the post war policy: the Peace Recovery and Development Plan (PRDP) • For post war Acholi sub region, which has gone through the PRDP framework since 2007, one would have expected local people to feel reintegrated into the national political economy as provided in the PRDP 2007 • But the feeling of being marginalised which was quite loud during the war still persists

15. This presumes a disconnect between theory and practice of participation in post war recovery strategy in Acholi sub region, and northern Uganda in general • Hence, the need to conduct this study • The important question was: ‘who defined the recovery needs for Acholi sub region?’

16. Methodology • Multi-sited ethnography in both Awach and Purongo (Marcus 1995) • I was already familiar in the areas of study from earlier research activities under DANIDA sponsored ENRECA Project at Gulu University • I also joined one of the FFS groups in Awach whereI was offered land to cultivate crops as a member • I also obtained space on the Advisory Board of the proposed Purongo culture centre in Nwoya district

17. Data collection • I used a number of data collection methods: Focus groups • Key informants • Conversations • Life stories • Participant observation • In-depth interviews • Written reports and • Other literary materials

18. Findings • It emerged that livelihoods have been restored at household levels. One member of a group told me: ‘I can now cultivate my gardens every season and I have enough food to eat with my family, and some little which I sell to get school fees for the children’ • On the question of being involved in projects, another respondent put it thus: ‘They rarely asked our opinion; they invited us to collect goats or ox-plough sets, seeds for multiplying. So, you take what you are offered’.

19. But LGs Three-Year Rolling Plans developed under the participatory PEAP framework that operated in Uganda from 1997 to 2010 were participatory • Hence, recovery projects that based on such LG Plans were by extension, also participatory • So, there was no contradiction • However, strict guidelines of projects drawn by donors remained vertical with little or no input, or accountability provided for local governments or local communities

20. The chair of my FFS told me that officials of one project assured the group that their NGO had ‘enough experience from similar post conflict areas like ours so they knew what was necessary and thus did not need to conduct fresh needs assessment’ • Thus, although post war recovery projects had restored livelihoods assets in the two sub counties and food security was relatively high, local people still felt they were not involved

21. As the time frame of projects as well as the guidelines issued by the donors still determined the scope and resources of projects • While those left out of such projects felt marginalised outright as only a few groups had been able to link into NGO or government recovery projects • One group in Purongo complained that they had been discriminated as no body even informed them whenever there was any project or meeting at the sub county headquarters

22. Conclusion • In conclusion, we can say that although people’s livelihoods assets had improved since the end of the insurgency, local people still felt their concerns were rarely ‘heard’ • Which suggests that the principles and practice of participation in the recovery of sustainable livelihoods in Acholi sub county in the aftermath of the LRA insurgency seem not to rhyme