| Decentralisation and Identity Research Abstract: | |
When the National Resistance Army/Movement (NRA/M) captured state power in 1986, it began a process of legitimising its rule through implementing a number of policy and legal reforms provided for in its ten point programme. These included enactment of a local government law providing for the decentralisation of power. Decentralisation as an institutional reform was intended to remedy the two-decade-old legacy of exclusion and marginalisation, and was seen as a means of efficient service delivery. While many of these reforms were sound in principle - affirmative action for women, promotion of local participation in governance, and introduction of checks and balances between local and central levels of government - the lack of political will, the attendant deterioration in governance, and the piecemeal implementation of the policy have, at times, produced counter productive outcomes. In some instances decentralisation has contributed to internecine and ethnicised violence such as that among the Jopadhola and the Iteso in Tororo, between the Baganda and Banyankole/Banyarwanda in Sembabule, and between the Iteso and Banyole in Butelajja. Such cases suggest that decentralisation has at times amounted to segmentation and fragmentation of Uganda, and in some instances resulted into districtisation (i.e. the fragmentation of bigger districts into smaller districts based on ethnicity or political expediency). A series of research activities will be carried out under this component of the Beyond Juba Project to explore the linkage between decentralisation and national reconciliation and unity in Uganda. Some of the issues include: To what extent has the state rationalized and used decentralisation policy to extend and entrench its political interests? To what extent did earlier discussions and debates on decentralisation affect its form and content? Can decentralisation accommodate the specific needs of pastoralist communities and livelihoods? In what ways does decentralisation affect national unity, reconciliation and integration? How do central and local governments structure and appropriate notions of citizenship in Uganda? Linked to the above is the relationship between national and district level processes. For example, the agreement on Agenda Item No. 3 section 5.4 raises questions regarding the nature of the modifications required in the national institutional framework to deal with reconciliation and accountability, and how this relates to decentralisation. For instance, where will formal and special courts on decentralisation be located; how will the two intersect? |
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