Many speakers and lecturers for our Anthropology course on peacebuilding and conflict in northern Uganda have made remarks on the massive non-governmental presence in Gulu, Uganda. They tell a similar story of how the war in northern Uganda waged for over 15 years without much international attention and to a great extent without much national coverage. It was only after the United Nations’ head of humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, declared Uganda “the most neglected humanitarian crisis in the world” in 2003 that the international community began to take notice (BCC). By 2005, Gulu district had 264 NGOs in what some would say was the highest concentration of NGOs in Africa. However, even with so much support you will find many local and national officials echo the sentiments of Mr. James Latigo, member of the Grassroots Reconciliation Project, that, “NGOs are a blessing and a frustration.”
Although active fighting ended in the region with the 2006 cease fire between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Uganda People’s Defense Force, conflict still exists. Suffering is lived and relived through the lack of accessible healthcare, inadequate welfare services, and the psychosocial trauma remaining from 21 years of war. Conflict now is made manifest through land wrangles and economic insecurity due to a decade of displacement in internally displaced persons camps. These are all challenges faced presently and in the presence of hundreds of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and agencies. Some northern Ugandans who have been shuffled through these organizations find that they speak a “different language” from that of the community. Others however, especially the youth, feel more positively about the NGOs because they offer temporary employment and volunteering opportunities. Civic leaders and elders, though, would warn you of the “fish syndrome” or the dependency of the northern community on aid and assistance from these NGOs.
Today, the number of NGOs and projects has declined as the community moves from that of emergency relief to that of development and recovery. From an outsider’s perspective, I question the very logic behind allowing so many NGOs to operate in the region without consolidating their efforts. There have been documented cases of exploitation by major aid groups and extralegal activities carried out by aid workers. No one captures this more precisely than Swedish anthropologist Sverker Finnstrom: “The muno especially is a rather depersonalized agent, who visits the camps only briefly and seldom engages in any dialogical communication or intersubjective endeavor with the displaced people, nor takes the time to listen to their stories and frustrations” (Living with Bad Surroundings, 2008: 171). He continues by saying that to the Acholi community, visiting foreigners are rarely seen as individuals, but rather as a category of people.
NGOs filled and continue to fill a gap between the government and the community by providing technical, intellectual, financial and material aid. Their resources and access to resources are greatly needed and wanted, but there relationship with the community is one of varying reciprocity and agreement. Because of competition for donor support and funding, NGOs tend to resist working with each other. However, efforts like the Working Group in Gulu which brought together the INGO (international nongovernmental organization) community to compare notes do exist, but this type of system should be extended and required of all civil society and humanitarian agencies. The culture of aid or rather the politics of aid has to be transformed to a more community-friendly model in order for the population to become self-sustaining. Northern Uganda unfortunately is only just one example of a very convoluted system world-wide, but it is my hope that this can be remedied through support for forums like the Working Group, system reformation, and context-specific and accessible services.
(originally written: July 21, 2011)
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