NGOs alone cannot ensure food security in Acholi
Oct 27, 2009
BY GEN. CALEB AKANDWANAHO<br><br>THE Acholi question is, is it food security when the fighting stops or could food security stop the fighting?
BY GEN. CALEB AKANDWANAHO
THE Acholi question is, is it food security when the fighting stops or could food security stop the fighting?
Food security means ensuring that all people have physical and economic access to the basic food they need to work and function normally. The right to food is the second most important human right after life. But in the Acholi region, the 17-year-old Lords Resistance Army insurgency has affected people’s livelihood hence denying them the right to food. People have been forced to live in IDPs for fear of abduction and killings by the rebels.
This has left them no choice but to depend on donated food. Food security, therefore, is no longer a community responsibility as is the norm in African culture, but a gift from humanitarian agencies.
Being an agrarian community, food security is dependent on access to land, which unfortunately has been limited by insecurity and congestion within the camps hence raising the Acholi question.
According to a researcher H. Fritschel, peace has broken out in a number of countries recently, raising hopes for establishing food security.
But restoring food security after conflict can be complicated and dangerous.
Whereas there is hardly any doubt that food security cannot arise under conflict conditions, it also follows
that there can hardly be peace under food insecure conditions — a hungry man is an angry man.
Aim
- The aim of this paper is to examine an integrated solution to support food security in conflict areas. This will in turn build a momentum towards peaceful resolution of the conflict and development in the post conflict areas.
Background
Uganda has achieved remarkable economic and social achievements in the last 15 years and is now ranked 146 out of 177 countries. This puts it ahead of Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania.
In spite of the above-mentioned success, there are continued disparities in human well being especially in the Acholi sub-region. This region is comprised of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts. The population is estimated to be 1,048,207.
It has been established that up to 87% of the population are displaced.
An average camp is estimated to be one square mile with as many as 15,000 to 25,000 people. These are crammed in small huts with inadequate space and facilities.
The appalling food insecurity has attracted both international and national strategies aimed at addressing the crisis.
At the international level, the assistance is in the form of food aid and other services such as medicine, education and community activities.
However, there is an acute shortage of basic facilities. There is dire need of a solution to the food insecurity situation that is not dependent on relief food delivered by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international UN agencies.
The supply of food and other aid is not guaranteed because World Food Programme and other agencies are
severely limited in their delivery of food and other humanitarian assistance by the high risk of attacks on
road convoys. Travel on most roads is possible with armed escorts.
The assistance to the IDPs is slow, poorly organised and inefficient. The money allocated is badly distributed.
Frequently the materials provided for purposes of relief are not adapted to the requirements of the local people.
In many cases those who come to assist the sufferers lack the expert knowledge of the technique of relief
work.
The offers made by the governments of the countries, which are safe to those affected, are in the nature of
charitable donations, which tend to embarrass the givers and humiliate the recipients.
Academicians, consultants, conflict resolution specialists and journalists who are never neutral mainly run the relief agencies. In relation to the ongoing conflict, relief assistance has an impact.
The mere fact of keeping people alive in an internal conflict is political and deserves to be recognised as
such. Perhaps the most common subversive impact of foreign relief programmes is that they invite favourable comparison with the Government’s own effort thus undermining the legitimacy of the Government.
Any established aid programme creates a local constituency to defend it.
As programmes become entrenched they tend to become more conservative and as the donor agency invests
more it becomes less willing to change even in obvious cases of wrong priorities. The agency or NGO
most determined to get the highest media profile obtains most funds from governments and donors. In
doing so it prioritises the requirements for fundraising.
It follows the TV camera employs young women to appear in the field with graphic and emotive shots of
starving kids and helpless women.
Here the definition of what the problem is becomes political and bad blood starts flowing between the
Government and relief agencies.
More importantly according to Alex da Wadl in his book Famine Crimes,in a prolonged aid programme, cultural shifts occur in recipient communities.
Donors increasingly come to define the problems and solutions to the recipient country and their dominant
position in major policy debates undermines the country’s possibility to conduct its own domestic debates
on the issues. The danger here is that national opinion formers may get over influenced by the perceptions
and prescriptions of the donors’ role of aid and the charitable approach at the expense of local policy and political solutions.
The end result is that the recipient communities come to believe that solutions lie entirely in the hands of the aid agencies and not in their own actions. This level of demoralisation and dependency is perhaps the most difficult obstacle to overcome in the post-conflict period. Some form of support in farming and other economic activities needs to be encouraged.
All this shows that when a government assumes that NGOs can plan and implement food security programmes for the people of the Acholi sub-region, it is assuming the impossible.
That is why the Government has to realise that it needs to draw up and fulfill “a social economic contract†to ensure food security for the people in the Acholi in spite of the conflict.
If we go by the poverty eradication plan, it is clear that the link between security, good governance and development is well addressed. For example, first and foremost in an agricultural economy like Uganda, one cannot address economic growth in a sustainable manner without modernising agriculture.
Secondly, good governance and security are crucial to agriculture.
Any other intervention to increase the abilities of the poor to raise income and improving the quality of life is definitely correct.
However, the Poverty Eradication Action Plan remains broad. It does not focus on any specific
community such as that affected by conflict.
For that matter it remains largely within the general national and local government policy and extension
services that are already crippled in the context of Acholi.
Government intervention
In the 1990s the Government tried to implement special programmes like the Northern Uganda Rehabilitation Programme (NURP I). This programme would have compensated the damage caused by the insurgencies and cattle rustling.
The aim was to restore basic social economic infrastructure as well as revive income-generating activities after what seemed like the end of the war. This effort was undermined by sporadic insecurity.
Furthermore, centralised procedures led to poor performance, inefficiency and resource wastage especially during procurement.
Lack of ownership of the programmes among the people also impeded the full implementation.
NURP II was later conceived to complement NURP I and sought to promote a transition from conflict to peace in the Acholi subregion and northern Uganda as a whole. It was also supposed to consolidate the gains, if any,
achieved under NURP I.
NURP II was also supposed to avoid mistakes that caused NURP I to fail. Unfortunately this programme never delivered the expected results.
In total about $150m (sh300b) was spent, but to date one cannot point to any outcome of this colossal sum of money. If someone is over flying the area in question, the only evidence that this programme existed is abandoned modern school buildings scattered all over the place.
Currently another programme is under way at an estimated cost of $93m (sh186b). The programme is known as Northern Uganda Social Action Fund. Among other things, this is supposed to carry out restocking and encourage the youth to generate income.
The programme is also supposedto address other factors caused by the bad performance of NURP 1 and NURP II. Despite these interventions and resource flows, and food insecurity and poverty in this area remains high.
The intervention undertaken and the resource spent have failed to make any significant impact in people’s lives. So why have these enormous interventions failed to deliver food security?
There can only be two reasons for the failure to achieve the set targets of the programmes mentioned.
Either the poverty problem in Acholi land is so deep that the interventions and resources spent so far are inadequate to make any significant impact or the Government and its development partners are not appropriately designed. Therefore, the interventions are not correctly implemented to deliver services effectively in conflict situations.
I tend to agree with the latter in that as a result of inadequate understanding and appreciation of the complexities of the Acholi conflict by implementers, policy makers and development partners, insufficient attention is paid to potential solutions.
The breakdown of governance structures, low absorptive capacity and lack of accurate information are not the most appropriate ways of delivering food security.
Also centralised procedures, topdown approach and sporadic insecurity created new needs and caused delays in the execution of the planned activities.
Lastly, the Government has never considered food security as one of the items of strategic importance. That is why it was left entirely in the hands of the relief agencies and development partners. If the Government
could realise the relationship between food security and insurgency, then the appropriate means would be availed to deal with the situation in a more logical, consistent and planned manner.
Conclusion
24. The need for food security is a challenge that requires new tools and wider partnerships. As Prof. Asenath Sigot put it, unless communities, regions and local counterparts are convinced of the validity, importance and priority of food security, then no amount of pushing will result in authentic responses that are effective.
As for the Acholi question, I want us to look at the following calculations.
- The amount of money used in relief operations over the years including the said interventions. This is approximately $500m (sh1000b).
- Amount of land available for emergency production is over 2 million acres.
c) The number of displaced people is approximately 200,000 families.
- If each family had been assisted to plough, plant and harvest three acres of land, the entire displaced population would have needed 600,000 acres of prepared and defended land.
- That would have cost the Government approximately $150m (sh300b) and you cannot compare that with the $500m(sh1000b) already spent.
- From the above calculations, I beg to conclude that food security could stop the fighting in Acholi region.
Recommendations
It is recommended that local communities should be given the opportunity to prepare their own strategies for self-sufficiency in food security.
An enabling environment will allow the people to express their views on the issues. They will be capable of defining their needs and aspirations and formulating a plan for sustainable food security.
To attain food security is a matter of responsible, informed behaviour by individuals and groups.
Responsible behaviour is likely only when people have full control over their lives and access to the resources they require.
Self-reliant communities have to be empowered and strengthened to act in their own interest in order to develop a strong sense of identity and mobilisation of under-utilised skills. This will liberate community resources and work to innovate and diversify their livelihood. Finally, efficient use of human and material resources.
The Government should carry out a comprehensive cross-sectoral and integrated approach to food security in the Acholi region in particular and Uganda at large.
This should involve a wider range of people in and out of the Government to develop food security action plans.
Experts should be nationals of the country charged with the task to develop a checklist of priority actions that will provide guidelines for sustainable food security.
The issue of land holding should be resolved.
The Acholi people have been traumatised but should not be blind of the fact that it is they who could develop them selves.
Gulu Airport should be upgraded to an international standard.
Article written by Senior Presidential Advisor Defence: Gen. Caleb K Akandwanaho Salim Saleh Oriba (rtd) while he was at Senior Command Staff College Kimaka in 2005.
The reason Gen Saleh wanted this article published:
[On world food day, I read Madam Hillary Clinton’s letter which was published by New vision and on October 22nd I read : a piece on page 14 on boosting small farmers to fight hunger. I have also read Ivan Ruhanga’s article ; Uganda has capacity to stop hunger. All the articles and the opinion remind of my paper at Senior Command and Staff College Kimaka 4 years ago which I would want to share with readers.]
THE Acholi question is, is it food security when the fighting stops or could food security stop the fighting?
Food security means ensuring that all people have physical and economic access to the basic food they need to work and function normally. The right to food is the second most important human right after life. But in the Acholi region, the 17-year-old Lords Resistance Army insurgency has affected people’s livelihood hence denying them the right to food. People have been forced to live in IDPs for fear of abduction and killings by the rebels.
This has left them no choice but to depend on donated food. Food security, therefore, is no longer a community responsibility as is the norm in African culture, but a gift from humanitarian agencies.
Being an agrarian community, food security is dependent on access to land, which unfortunately has been limited by insecurity and congestion within the camps hence raising the Acholi question.
According to a researcher H. Fritschel, peace has broken out in a number of countries recently, raising hopes for establishing food security.
But restoring food security after conflict can be complicated and dangerous.
Whereas there is hardly any doubt that food security cannot arise under conflict conditions, it also follows
that there can hardly be peace under food insecure conditions — a hungry man is an angry man.
Aim
- The aim of this paper is to examine an integrated solution to support food security in conflict areas. This will in turn build a momentum towards peaceful resolution of the conflict and development in the post conflict areas.
Background
Uganda has achieved remarkable economic and social achievements in the last 15 years and is now ranked 146 out of 177 countries. This puts it ahead of Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania.
In spite of the above-mentioned success, there are continued disparities in human well being especially in the Acholi sub-region. This region is comprised of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts. The population is estimated to be 1,048,207.
It has been established that up to 87% of the population are displaced.
An average camp is estimated to be one square mile with as many as 15,000 to 25,000 people. These are crammed in small huts with inadequate space and facilities.
The appalling food insecurity has attracted both international and national strategies aimed at addressing the crisis.
At the international level, the assistance is in the form of food aid and other services such as medicine, education and community activities.
However, there is an acute shortage of basic facilities. There is dire need of a solution to the food insecurity situation that is not dependent on relief food delivered by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international UN agencies.
The supply of food and other aid is not guaranteed because World Food Programme and other agencies are
severely limited in their delivery of food and other humanitarian assistance by the high risk of attacks on
road convoys. Travel on most roads is possible with armed escorts.
The assistance to the IDPs is slow, poorly organised and inefficient. The money allocated is badly distributed.
Frequently the materials provided for purposes of relief are not adapted to the requirements of the local people.
In many cases those who come to assist the sufferers lack the expert knowledge of the technique of relief
work.
The offers made by the governments of the countries, which are safe to those affected, are in the nature of
charitable donations, which tend to embarrass the givers and humiliate the recipients.
Academicians, consultants, conflict resolution specialists and journalists who are never neutral mainly run the relief agencies. In relation to the ongoing conflict, relief assistance has an impact.
The mere fact of keeping people alive in an internal conflict is political and deserves to be recognised as
such. Perhaps the most common subversive impact of foreign relief programmes is that they invite favourable comparison with the Government’s own effort thus undermining the legitimacy of the Government.
Any established aid programme creates a local constituency to defend it.
As programmes become entrenched they tend to become more conservative and as the donor agency invests
more it becomes less willing to change even in obvious cases of wrong priorities. The agency or NGO
most determined to get the highest media profile obtains most funds from governments and donors. In
doing so it prioritises the requirements for fundraising.
It follows the TV camera employs young women to appear in the field with graphic and emotive shots of
starving kids and helpless women.
Here the definition of what the problem is becomes political and bad blood starts flowing between the
Government and relief agencies.
More importantly according to Alex da Wadl in his book Famine Crimes,in a prolonged aid programme, cultural shifts occur in recipient communities.
Donors increasingly come to define the problems and solutions to the recipient country and their dominant
position in major policy debates undermines the country’s possibility to conduct its own domestic debates
on the issues. The danger here is that national opinion formers may get over influenced by the perceptions
and prescriptions of the donors’ role of aid and the charitable approach at the expense of local policy and political solutions.
The end result is that the recipient communities come to believe that solutions lie entirely in the hands of the aid agencies and not in their own actions. This level of demoralisation and dependency is perhaps the most difficult obstacle to overcome in the post-conflict period. Some form of support in farming and other economic activities needs to be encouraged.
All this shows that when a government assumes that NGOs can plan and implement food security programmes for the people of the Acholi sub-region, it is assuming the impossible.
That is why the Government has to realise that it needs to draw up and fulfill “a social economic contract†to ensure food security for the people in the Acholi in spite of the conflict.
If we go by the poverty eradication plan, it is clear that the link between security, good governance and development is well addressed. For example, first and foremost in an agricultural economy like Uganda, one cannot address economic growth in a sustainable manner without modernising agriculture.
Secondly, good governance and security are crucial to agriculture.
Any other intervention to increase the abilities of the poor to raise income and improving the quality of life is definitely correct.
However, the Poverty Eradication Action Plan remains broad. It does not focus on any specific
community such as that affected by conflict.
For that matter it remains largely within the general national and local government policy and extension
services that are already crippled in the context of Acholi.
Government intervention
In the 1990s the Government tried to implement special programmes like the Northern Uganda Rehabilitation Programme (NURP I). This programme would have compensated the damage caused by the insurgencies and cattle rustling.
The aim was to restore basic social economic infrastructure as well as revive income-generating activities after what seemed like the end of the war. This effort was undermined by sporadic insecurity.
Furthermore, centralised procedures led to poor performance, inefficiency and resource wastage especially during procurement.
Lack of ownership of the programmes among the people also impeded the full implementation.
NURP II was later conceived to complement NURP I and sought to promote a transition from conflict to peace in the Acholi subregion and northern Uganda as a whole. It was also supposed to consolidate the gains, if any,
achieved under NURP I.
NURP II was also supposed to avoid mistakes that caused NURP I to fail. Unfortunately this programme never delivered the expected results.
In total about $150m (sh300b) was spent, but to date one cannot point to any outcome of this colossal sum of money. If someone is over flying the area in question, the only evidence that this programme existed is abandoned modern school buildings scattered all over the place.
Currently another programme is under way at an estimated cost of $93m (sh186b). The programme is known as Northern Uganda Social Action Fund. Among other things, this is supposed to carry out restocking and encourage the youth to generate income.
The programme is also supposedto address other factors caused by the bad performance of NURP 1 and NURP II. Despite these interventions and resource flows, and food insecurity and poverty in this area remains high.
The intervention undertaken and the resource spent have failed to make any significant impact in people’s lives. So why have these enormous interventions failed to deliver food security?
There can only be two reasons for the failure to achieve the set targets of the programmes mentioned.
Either the poverty problem in Acholi land is so deep that the interventions and resources spent so far are inadequate to make any significant impact or the Government and its development partners are not appropriately designed. Therefore, the interventions are not correctly implemented to deliver services effectively in conflict situations.
I tend to agree with the latter in that as a result of inadequate understanding and appreciation of the complexities of the Acholi conflict by implementers, policy makers and development partners, insufficient attention is paid to potential solutions.
The breakdown of governance structures, low absorptive capacity and lack of accurate information are not the most appropriate ways of delivering food security.
Also centralised procedures, topdown approach and sporadic insecurity created new needs and caused delays in the execution of the planned activities.
Lastly, the Government has never considered food security as one of the items of strategic importance. That is why it was left entirely in the hands of the relief agencies and development partners. If the Government
could realise the relationship between food security and insurgency, then the appropriate means would be availed to deal with the situation in a more logical, consistent and planned manner.
Conclusion
24. The need for food security is a challenge that requires new tools and wider partnerships. As Prof. Asenath Sigot put it, unless communities, regions and local counterparts are convinced of the validity, importance and priority of food security, then no amount of pushing will result in authentic responses that are effective.
As for the Acholi question, I want us to look at the following calculations.
- The amount of money used in relief operations over the years including the said interventions. This is approximately $500m (sh1000b).
- Amount of land available for emergency production is over 2 million acres.
c) The number of displaced people is approximately 200,000 families.
- If each family had been assisted to plough, plant and harvest three acres of land, the entire displaced population would have needed 600,000 acres of prepared and defended land.
- That would have cost the Government approximately $150m (sh300b) and you cannot compare that with the $500m(sh1000b) already spent.
- From the above calculations, I beg to conclude that food security could stop the fighting in Acholi region.
Recommendations
It is recommended that local communities should be given the opportunity to prepare their own strategies for self-sufficiency in food security.
An enabling environment will allow the people to express their views on the issues. They will be capable of defining their needs and aspirations and formulating a plan for sustainable food security.
To attain food security is a matter of responsible, informed behaviour by individuals and groups.
Responsible behaviour is likely only when people have full control over their lives and access to the resources they require.
Self-reliant communities have to be empowered and strengthened to act in their own interest in order to develop a strong sense of identity and mobilisation of under-utilised skills. This will liberate community resources and work to innovate and diversify their livelihood. Finally, efficient use of human and material resources.
The Government should carry out a comprehensive cross-sectoral and integrated approach to food security in the Acholi region in particular and Uganda at large.
This should involve a wider range of people in and out of the Government to develop food security action plans.
Experts should be nationals of the country charged with the task to develop a checklist of priority actions that will provide guidelines for sustainable food security.
The issue of land holding should be resolved.
The Acholi people have been traumatised but should not be blind of the fact that it is they who could develop them selves.
Gulu Airport should be upgraded to an international standard.
Article written by Senior Presidential Advisor Defence: Gen. Caleb K Akandwanaho Salim Saleh Oriba (rtd) while he was at Senior Command Staff College Kimaka in 2005.
The reason Gen Saleh wanted this article published:
[On world food day, I read Madam Hillary Clinton’s letter which was published by New vision and on October 22nd I read : a piece on page 14 on boosting small farmers to fight hunger. I have also read Ivan Ruhanga’s article ; Uganda has capacity to stop hunger. All the articles and the opinion remind of my paper at Senior Command and Staff College Kimaka 4 years ago which I would want to share with readers.]