Fountain, Kampala, pp 4160, Woodhouse P (1997) Governance & local environmental management in Africa. However, others analyze this as a dynamic political process in which centralization and decentralization are interactively constituted. WebFigure 3.2 outlines the importance of natural resources in Uganda. These general conclusions on the dynamics of decentralization are relevant for the case of environmental and natural resource management as well. Most people in unpaid subsistence agriculture are women, who are more likely to be poor and vulnerable. UNEP, Nairobi, Wetaaka Wadala A (2007) The politics of decentralisation in Uganda. When the local governments were initially formalized in 1993, decentralization was seen not as a means of democratizing power over natural resource management but as a means of increasing revenue, promoting local development, and improving the effectiveness and legitimacy of the state. Correspondence to The importance of environmental protection to the livelihood of local communities, including the poor, should be emphasized and made concrete. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6680637.stm. As is highlighted in this paper, concerns about prudent management of oil revenue in Uganda are very real because of the countrys degree of vulnerability to a resource curse, specifically its weak institutions and governance, social fragmentation, lack of political inclusiveness, and the opacity of Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) signed by politicians and oil companies. The devolvement of administrative capacity and active involvement of stakeholders was therefore expected to address this weakness. Section 1 introduces the country overview and background. Right to a decent environment. NEMA, and by extension also the DEOs, are expected to have the qualifications and a reasonable degree of independence to be able to avoid the constraints and difficulties of traditional bureaucracies (NEAP 1993). This focus on shared interest is expressed in the widespread engagement of communities in the implementation of Local Agenda 21 (Mehta 1996). Wageningen University, Environmental Policy, P.O. Populations may be highly mobile, socially and economically differentiated and possess competing interests and values. Some consider decentralization to be a process of democratization that redistributes power. WebSustainable use of natural resources and energy in the refugee context in Uganda Project Title: Sustainable use of natural resources and energy in the refugee context in Uganda Implementation Period: October 2017 June 2018 Organization name: Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH ( GIZ ) Project Strategy: Public Administration and Development 23:241248, Mubeezi R (2007) Decentralization of environmental health services in Uganda, a case study of Mpigi and Mukono districts. Between 1996 and 2012 the richest 10 percent of the population increased their share of national income from 29.9 percent to 35.7 percent, while the share of the poorest 10 percent decreased from 3.2 percent to 2.5 percent. Fiscal sustainability has eluded many natural resource-rich developing countries, such as Angola and Nigeria, which are experiencing regressive growth and significant poverty despite the vast resource rents available. All rights reserved. Less than 4 percent of the national budget is allocated to agriculture, which is far below the governments Maputo Protocol commitment to allocate at least 10 percent. How land injustice reinforces inequality in Uganda. In the case of wetland management, Andeweg (2006) found that local governments are responsible for planning and budgeting for wetland management activities, but the funding for these activities is allocated by the central government. Although it is not necessarily the main reason for engaging in a process of decentralization, environmental and natural resource management seems to be an attractive domain for it. Copyright 2023 Oxfam International. However, development experiences from oil-rich countries in Africa raise concerns that Uganda could suffer oil curse - a situation in which extraction of oilincreases poverty and misery to majority of the people instead of leading to improvement in livelihoods for all. This problem will not disappear by increasing the district environmental staff capacity, although training may be beneficial if it is combined with improved communication with politicians. Below, we elaborate on some of the specific challenges that complicate the decentralization of environmental policy in Uganda. This search is even further complicated by the high turnover among DEOs. =X*o!+.A_@+9=rWXJYlR-p:p| IDS Bulletin 38:717, Romeo LG (2003) The role of external assistance in supporting decentralization reform. Between 2013 and 2017, the number of people living in poverty in Uganda increased from 6.7 million to 10 million. Several concepts (deconcentration, delegation, and devolution [Dressler 2006]) have been used to describe the various approaches implemented in different countries, to explain their respective successes and failures, and to identify the most promising model. Gas supply will remain suspended for eight hours today in different areas of the capital for emergency replacement and removal of gas pipelines. Although this has partly been repaired by a (temporary) Graduated Tax Compensation that allocates funds from the central government to local governments (Republic of Uganda 2008), local authorities now only control minor sources of self-generated revenue, including the fees and taxes that are levied, charged, collected, and appropriated as rents, rates, royalties, stamp duties, or fees on registration and licensing. Slider with three articles shown per slide. In this process, particular attention should be focused on securing the decentralization of significant power, especially power over finances (Conyers 2007). As land, forest and water resources are increasingly compromised, womens livelihoods are particularly marginalized. Several thousand scientists and experts from all continents form part of a network supporting the work of its Commissions: threatened species, protected areas, ecology, environmental strategy Principles of environment management. They tend to take a strongly sectoral approach to planning and thereby exhibit a bias toward social service (health and education) provisions. Second, it is challenging to identify priorities and adequate measures in a district development policy in such a way that it does not make environmental protection disappear behind other policy goals. According to reports from organizations like the MNR (1994) and National Environment Management Authority (NEMA 2007), these problems can be categorized into land, water, forest, and biodiversity issues. communities who are directly affected by the operations of corporate companies and state agencies to understand each stage of the value chain, the opportunities and challenges and how to address the emerging challenges. : The 2012 Claude Ake Memorial Lecture, Resource Curse , Staple Thesis and Rentier Politics in Africa, Oil Discovery in Uganda: Managing Expectations, Balancing debt with sustainability? ensure that issues of women stand out in the laws and policies. Foreign donors should be willing to engage in the same approach, but currently international aid programs seem to move away from project-based interventions (which allow local government support) toward budget support; this shifts decisions back to the center (Mitchinson 2003). Environmental Systems and Local Actors: Decentralizing Environmental Policy in Uganda. Increased orientation toward clients in the operation of such services is sought through the unbundling of vertically integrated bureaucracies into separate organizational or ownership forms with the aim of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public goods and services (Caulfield 2006, p. 17). In many situations, environmental governance outcomes depend less on the personal motivations and qualities of the local councilors and administrators and more on the incentives created by the institutional environment in which they have to operate (Romeo 2003). students Karin Andeweg and Ruth Mubeezi, for their input. Social protection: a synthesis of evidence and lessons from 3ie- supported impact evaluations, Transparency and accountability in the extractives sector: a synthesis of what works and what does not, Examining the evidence on the effectiveness of Indias rural employment guarantee act, Evaluating advocacy: an exploration of evidence and tools to understand what works and why, Working Paper 33 Transparency and accountability in the extractives sector A synthesis of what works and what does not, Extractive Natural Resource Development: Governance, Linkages and Aid, Synthesis of impact evaluations of the World Food Programmes nutrition interventions in humanitarian settings in the Sahel, Protection of petroleum resources in Africa : a comparative analysis of oil and gas laws of selected African States, Natural Resource Wealth: The Challenge of Managing a Windfall, Protection of petrolium resources in Africa : a comparative analysis of oil and gas laws of selected African States, A return to the resource curse or a path to development? it Discusses how new oil states can use policy, law and sound institutions to avert the "oil curse". Spot Message in Karamojong on Mineral Rights in Karamoja. In Uganda, environmental and natural resource management is decentralized and has been the responsibility of local districts since 1996. With comparative advantages in agriculture and estimated recoverable oil reserves of over 1.4 billion barrels, with first oil expected in 2025, Uganda is seeing increasing interest among foreign investors. Moreover, negotiations about the distribution of responsibilities and the respective duties of various administrative levels will continue. WebThere is increased focus on land issues relating to the extractive industry in Uganda aimed to protect the rights of the communities living in oil and mineral rich areas. The question of land is a question of power, and the way land policies over the years have failed to address injustice and inequality. ;GJt\tB5XD8e]xL{;d2ossY/8QTzt'j1dp|o173Rfi0. These include hydro, biomass, solar, geothermal, peat and fossil fuels. In 2008, 75 of the 80 districts appealed for financial assistance from the central government after many had failed to meet their running costs (The Independent magazine, Sept 5Sept 11, 2008, p. 16). Over the years, an elaborate institutional framework for decentralized environmental policy has been developed but there are various institutional deficiencies in implementing this framework in practice. Dutch Disease in Aid-recipient Countries. Oosterveer, P., Van Vliet, B. We must therefore analyze the strengths and weaknesses of decentralized environmental governance; this article does so by assessing the experiences of Uganda, with a focus on the institutional and systemic levels. legal and policy processes towards a more equitable distribution of land access and ownership, and greater tenure security for the vulnerable groups. In fact, the country accounts for almost 50% of East Africas In the early phase of decentralization, local authorities could use the graduated tax they collected; in the 19992000 fiscal year, this tax contributed to 67% of the locally generated revenues (Iversen and others 2006). Commencement. Examples of such activities include educational projects in which school children make biodiversity inventories and develop plans to protect local wetlands (Table3) and joint efforts with the local population to assess local waste management practices. Finally, districts may develop legislative measures or bylaws that require their citizens to follow certain guidelines for environmental protection; these guidelines may prevent (or reduce) soil erosion or offer specific prescriptions on charcoal production. Furthermore, it is essential to clarify the responsibilities of national specialized natural protection agencies in Uganda such as the UWA and UFA, particularly since they have a parallel presence at the local level. Environmental Systems and Local Actors: Decentralizing Environmental Policy in Uganda, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9423-4, Decentralized governments: local empowerment and sustainable development challenges in Africa, The means, motive and opportunity of devolved policy responses to an ecosystem approach, Bringing resource management back into the environmental governance agenda: eco-state restructuring in China, In our (frozen) backyard: the Eurasian Union and regional environmental governance in the Arctic, Localism Reimagined: Building a Robust Localist Paradigm for Overcoming Emerging Conservation Challenges, What makes a national park? 'c0P*D~>@.ej{P:s There is a structural tension in the decentralization process between the goal of increasing efficiency and effectiveness and the objective of increased local democracy, participation, and equity promotion (Robinson 2007). The situation is even more complex because not all environmental problems currently fall under the responsibility of the districts. WebDistribution of Natural Resources Saved by 200 educators Different regions have access to different renewable or nonrenewable natural resources such as freshwater, fossil fuels, fertile soil, or timber based on their geographic location and past geologic processes. According to a press release of Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Limited, the areas where gas supply will be suspended from 10:00am to The oil curse is not because of the oil but due to economic and political mismanagement. PubMedGoogle Scholar. Resource Rights Africa is a research and development organization formed in 2016 to advocate for the promotion and protection of peoples rights in Uganda. Gender equity and equality in land tenure, access and control is essential to improve food security, education, health and economic development. The tension between environmental and natural resource management and other policy domains such as health, education, agriculture, and economic development. 1. Review of Education 51:313327, Blaikie P (2006) Is small really beautiful? In practice, sectoral programs are financed and monitored by central ministry agencies and implemented independently from local authorities; genuine central-local partnerships that make use of the comparative advantages of local governments could enhance the planning and implementation of these programs (Romeo 2003). These specialized institutions have many more material and human resources than the districts and they directly control important natural resources at the local level; however, they lack local political support and feel no need to coordinate with other interests. IDS Bulletin 38:1832, Dressler WH, Kull CA, Meredith TC (2006) The politics of decentralizing national parks management in the Philippines. The decentralization process continues to this day through both large and small legal and administrative adaptations (Kisembo 2006). Oil, coal, natural gas, metals, stone and sand are natural resources. The main political and administrative powers at the local level are vested in the district (LC5) and the governing body of the district is also directly elected by the population. However, poor people can benefit from land only if laws and policies prevent the rich and powerful from trampling on their rights. Among contributing factors to this growing gap, land stands out as the lead driver of inequality in the country. The language of Ugandas environmental policy is participatory and user-focused, but in reality the policy is mediated by the legal and administrative structures and procedures established for the implementation of nationally determined measures (Brinkerhoff and Kamugasha 1998). Over time, several changes have been made to the ways in which local authorities access the financial resources they require for the implementation of their policies. WebThe current report presents a picture of the condition of the environment and natural resources in Uganda. For example, the Great Plains region of the United States is known for its abundance of fertile soil. The continuous growth in the number of districts can be explained by the social, cultural, economic, and political dynamics generated at the local level by decentralization. Bwindi Impenatrable Natural Park, Uganda. Similar problems occur in forests where trees are illegally cut to clear land for agricultural use and grazing. In addition, political leaders from the ruling National Resistance Movement seeking to build their numerical strength before general elections encourage new districts in exchange for political support. Bazaara (2003) found that councilors have difficulty enacting environmental legislation or enforcing laws that would create electoral difficulties or that are not in their personal interests. Decentralization in general has yielded several positive results, including improvements in service delivery as well as increased political participation and more downward accountability by local politicians. WebNearly 70 percent of households in Uganda are engaged in land-based subsistence farming. Fiscal policy and the future of petroleum revenue management in Ghana, A Decade of Oil Discovery in Ghana: Implications for Politics and Democracy. Moreover, the DEOs and other local institutions have more diverse interests than the specialized goals of wildlife protection or forest conservation espoused by the UWA and UFA, respectively. Public Administration and Development 23:8996, United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) (2002) Africa environmental outlook; past, present and future perspectives. Three specific tensions are particularly important in decentralized environmental policymaking in Uganda and are addressed in the remainder of this article. Oil in Uganda, Student Number: 31569625 I declare that the PROTECTION OF PETROLEUM RESOURCES IN AFRICA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF OIL AND GAS LAWS OF SELECTED AFRICAN. All rights reserved. This paper attempts to model the likely interaction between political dynamics and windfall oil rents in a number of soon-to-be oil-dependent economies in Africa. Because offsets between different choices are necessary and result in winners and losers among the local stakeholders, environmental and natural resource management should be considered part of the political decision-making process. NEMA promotes a nonpoliticized approach to environmental policymaking. These international donors made decentralization a condition for the release of grants or loans to implement certain environment-related programs (Bazaara 2003). The tension between technical staff and locally elected officials who legitimately claim they represent their constituents. Other natural resources are However, when African governments initiate a process of decentralization in natural resource management, they tend to include the local level in such a way as to render it manageable in a uniform manner. WebAny natural substance that humans use can be considered a natural resource. Generally, this one administrative officer alone is responsible for fulfilling these tasks, although he or she is expected to collaborate with other technical staff at the district level and with the Local Environmental Committee. Second, tension may arise between the different levels of government, as some decisions that are made on the national level, including those about financial matters, are implemented locally without the local authorities having had any input; this situation conflicts with the general idea of decentralized decision-making. 70 percent of households in Uganda are engaged in land-based subsistence farming. USAID, Washington, DC, Bscher B, Dressler W (2007) Linking neoprotectionism and environmental governance: on the rapidly increasing tensions between actors in the environment-development nexus. Only in instances where ratios of oil rent to government revenue are low and existing institutions relatively strong is equilibrium political stability likely to be maintained. In reality, this focused attention to environmental matters within the work of the DEOs has to be effectuated via the deliberations of district politics. Box 8130, Wageningen, 6700EW, The Netherlands, You can also search for this author in Fiscal sustainability has eluded most resource-rich African countries, as they have not used resource rents for social and economic development, and exhibit unsustainable debts, poverty and corruption (the "resource curse"). For example, in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Forest the central government, represented by the UWA, has devolved decision-making to the local institutions. Corn, soybeans, and wheat are globally exported from this region and serve as the main economy. Wetlands are part of an important ecosystem that purifies polluted water but their role is also deteriorating. Speech by the undersecretary of the Ministry of Local Government at the Mbale District environmental profile workshop Mbale, Ministry of Local Government, Kampala, Odwedo M (1996) Decentralisation of natural resources and environmental management in Uganda: the concept and the way forward. In terms of economic welfare, income transfers domin Few resource-rich countries in sub-Saharan Africa have experienced significant growth and social transformation. Decentralized environmental and natural resource management would allow local communities to be actively involved and to address their main environmental problems in ways that suit their local needs (Agrawal and Gibson 1999). Earth Science, Geology, Geography, Physical Geography, Chemistry, National Geographic Headquarters 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036. His or her position within this arena is rather weak because it is not very attractive for local politicians to engage with environmental topics; in addition, DEOs represent limited funds and few (at least short-term) economic interests. Arizonas right to use water from this river stems from the Colorado Compact, an agreement established in 1922. Inequities in land ownership and access have persisted in Uganda for centuries. Rights of nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9423-4, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9423-4. Even when legal provisions are present and clearly defined, a power struggle may arise, particularly among the RDC, DCP and CAO; environmental issues can be caught in the middle. The paper discusses management of popular expectations in Uganda that are associated with discovery of oil, with a view to assisting the country to avoid the dreaded oil curse. Through the abolishment of the locally collected graduated tax in 2005 and increased use of conditional grants, the central government tries to influence and restrict choice and political space for local authorities by attaching strong conditions and supervision procedures to the use of grants. Google Scholar, Andeweg K (2006) Central issues in decentralised wetland management, a comparative case study in Kumi and Mukono district, Uganda. Finally, the third challenge we want to discuss concerns the mainstreaming of environmental concerns into the broader local development policy; such mainstreaming is essential to success in a developing country where local authorities face many urgent problems, including those related to the daily survival of large numbers of poor people. These first districts were later followed by others and all districts are now expected to include the protection of the environment in their development plans and to assign at least one dedicated technical staff member to be the DEO. And it affects us all. The situation is further complicated by the general lack of clarity on the difference in formal tasks between the administrative staff and local politicians; as a result, specific responsibilities remain debatable. Recent natural resource discoveries in East Africa provide an enormous opportunity for development. There is a fear that Uganda's previous economic gains [1] could be reversed by oil exploitation. Review of African Political Economy 24:537547, Wunsch JS (2001) Decentralization, local governance and recentralization in Africa. World Development 31:325337, Harrison G (2001) Post-conditionality politics and administrative reform: reflections on the cases of Uganda and Tanzania. The article draws on several sources: existing literature; two qualitative case studies completed by M.Sc. In Uganda, a great deal of energy has been devoted to strengthening local capacity for environmental and natural resource management through training and focused support for elected officials and administrative staff. The results of political decentralization are not necessarily determined by the selected model but, rather, by the interactions among the model, the implementation process, and the specific local and national dynamics through which decentralization is effected. These profoundly negative effects have given rise to significant debate as to how oil-rich Uganda can evade the "resource curse" and realize fiscal sustainability. Fiscal sustainability has eluded most resource-rich African countries, as they have not usedresource rents for social and economic development, and exhibit unsustainable debts, povertyand corruption (the resource curse). Stevens (2003) [3] posits that countries with very large oil reserves have high public spending positions due to expectations of oil windfalls, which is a behaviour that compromises fiscal sustainability, as oil is nonrenewable. However, local environmental management cannot be reduced to the individual qualities of local actors. The organization was established with the explicit intention of creating a neutral, technically oriented and nonpolitical institution. Despite these limited results, one should not fall into the trap of considering the decentralization process itself to be responsible for these failures and therefore suggesting that a centralized approach would perform better (Bscher and Dressler 2007). Oil Industry in Uganda: The Socio-economic Effects on the People of Kabaale Village, Hoima, and Bunyoro Region in Uganda, Implications of Oil and Gas Discoveries ACS Dec 18 2012 v3, The role of country-level institutional factors in escaping the natural resource curse: Insights from Ghana, Transparent Governance in an Age of Abundance: Experiences from the Extractive Industries in Latin America and the Caribbean (Executive Summary), Oil exploration and production in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1990-present: Trends and developments, From Dependency Theory to Local Governance: Evolution of the Research on Extractive Industries and Development, NATURAL RESOURCE REVENUE SHARING SCHEMES (TRUST FUNDS) IN INTERNATIONAL LAW, Managing Future Oil Revenues in Uganda for Agricultural Development and Poverty Reduction: A CGE Analysis of Challenges and Options. See Table5 for some positive examples. The Role of Parliament in Uganda's Oil and Zimbabwe's Diamonds, The Oil Industry in Uganda; A Blessing in Disguise or an all Too Familiar Curse? The Oil Industry in Uganda; A Blessing in Disguise or an all Too Familiar Curse? Before addressing these tensions, we offer a brief introduction to the decentralization of environmental policy in Uganda. The authors would like to thank NEMA-Uganda, in particular, Beatrice Adimola and M.Sc. Emphasis is placed on developing and maintaining effective working relations with government, development partners and the private sector to advocate for sustainable resource and environment management at all levels, including recommending alternative policy or operational options to government. Policy Committee on Environment. Government of Uganda, Kampala, Mitchinson R (2003) Devolution in Uganda: an experiment in local service delivery. If environmental problems resulting from policy measures are part of this struggle, they are not always supported equally by technical staff, whose personal loyalties may lie with their particular professional field rather than with their colleagues. Best Bangladeshi games to keep an eye on, Ex-Dhaka mayor Khoka indicted in graft case, Countries Bangladeshis can visit without visas. In particular, forestry and wildlife conservation still have dedicated specialized institutions under the control of central ministries. Instead of focusing on the individual level (as do many so-called capacity building projects), two other levels should be emphasized: the institutional level, where government structures arrange local environmental management; and the systemic level, where the policy and legal frameworks direct local environmental policy. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative, Over 10 million scientific documents at your fingertips, Not logged in Webenvironmental change and natural resources depletion/degradation in Uganda. The question, then, is whether decentralization should be abandoned altogether as an achievable aim or whether some perspectives remain after drawing lessons from these experiences. ?H]r2VT1K|3 P\Vy!,X !h.ysrb4qU>-*S+9T^sc.k&dWr[ _\b#6#QE3ZKEIEX"kTb2hdx8]_-fBjZ)wsEmS?2Gvh~z~KT"(HrQ1EcozHK}XcdffEv2vkN#Lw 0 7!*/Q;vOSG G@R6iq|p"GSv]{LwkS(@ndlLr The decentralization of environmental and natural resource management is therefore not only an administrative act, but also a political process involving a redistribution of power and resources (Larson and Soto 2008). First, the central government delegated the coordination, monitoring and supervision of all activities related to the environment to a semi-autonomous executive agency, NEMA. The difficulty in obtaining data hinders the practice and promotion of existing methods, and it limits the selection of data for many practical Most THF is found in the west of the country, around the shores In addition to their primary tasks, DEOs may also engage in awareness-raising to inform the general population about particular environmental problems and to show what people can do themselves to solve (or prevent) them. Uganda is well known for its birds and its wildlife, particularly the mountain gorillas, so biodiversity must be protected for both environmental and economic reasons; these natural resources are the basis for an important source of income from tourism. In our case study in Uganda, we distinguish between two interactions in the second configuration: the interactions between the local administrative staff and local politicians and those between local environmental and natural resource management and other local policy domains. Natural resources are officially managed for the benefit of the people of Uganda. It is currently engaged in lobbying for law reforms to. WebUgandas key natural resources include copper, cobalt, limestone, salt, gold, and water, as well as largely untapped reserves of crude oil and natural gas. Emphasis is placed on developing and maintaining effective working relations with government, development partners and the private sector to advocate for sustainable resource and environment management at all levels, including recommending alternative policy or operational options to government. Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer. By promoting adequate policy measures, environmental governance can be more successfully mainstreamed into local development plans. From only 33 districts in 1986, the number grew to 45 in 1998, 56 in 2003, and to 80 by 2008. Environmental and natural resource management is supposed to be connected with and possibly integrated into other policy domains at the local level; these domains include health, education, and economic and infrastructure development. This article concludes that the "resource curse" is attributable to economic, legal, political and socio-cultural factors. Overcoming these challenges is problematic as districts generally have entrenched processes of planning and conducting development activities. Drastic measures are necessary to address land tenure, control and ownership and need to focus on the most vulnerable. Mainstreaming environmental and natural resource management with other policy domains at the local level requires the design of a local strategy for sustainable development. Section three is composed of the three This brief summary shows that many of the main environmental problems in Uganda are simultaneously part of other policy domains, such as agriculture (erosion and soil fertility), forestry (encroachment and charcoal burning), and health (water, solid waste, and sanitation). Part of Springer Nature. Webnatural resourCes Human survival depends on natural resources which are turned, by agricultural and industrial activities, into goods and services for the maintenance of Variations in environmental performance between different districts are mostly explained by the permanent growth in the number of districts, which creates disturbances by requiring repeated reorganization. These environmentalists define communities according to tight spatial boundaries of jurisdiction and responsibilities and see them as having distinct and integrated social structures and common interests. The process is complicated because authority and resources are captured by either (or both) central or local actors who have an interest in preventing them from reaching local governments, and/or because the design of local institutions and processes is frequently flawed (Wunsch 2001, p. 286). Various responsibilities, including environmental management, are devolved by the center and imposed in a unilateral manner on the local governments and communities, many of whom remain reluctant to perform these tasks. Webdiversity of the natural world, and to ensure that human use of natural resources is appropriate, sustainable and equitable. We use detailed publicly-available information on the upstream oil sector and the fiscal regime to derive realistic cost and government revenue profiles across a range of oil price scenarios. In the case of environmental health, a typical local-level service provision, funding must be secured from the central government (Mubeezi 2007) (see also Table4). Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. Fountain, Kampala, Lane MB, McDonald G (2005) Community-based environmental planning: operational dilemmas, planning principles and possible remedies. Public Administration and Development 26:1526, Conyers D (2007) Decentralisation and service delivery: lessons from sub-Saharan Africa. As a result, both the extent of decentralization and its outcomes will vary from one context to another and from one natural resource to another (Bazaara 2003). In this view, decentralization gives stakeholders a greater role in decision-making, and this increased participation leads to better decisions which are more broadly supported. However, other researchers point to the complex relationships among public administrators, political elites, and international donors who are involved in national and local politics (Andeweg 2006; Blaikie 2006; Mubeezi 2007). The next section further analyzes current practices in decentralized environmental policy to identify the main causes of these deficiencies. WebFew resource-rich countries in sub-Saharan Africa have experienced significant growth and social transformation. But has this led to real improvements? The DEOs have several instruments at their disposal, but their key policy tool is to link environmental objectives to the overall district development plan; this plan determines common policy goals for the district as well as budget allocations (see Table2 for an example). Therefore, this article closely examines the recent political history of Uganda and asks to what extent this country has been able to improve its environmental and natural resource management through decentralization. <>stream Uganda is a country in East-Central Africa that is bordered by Tanzania, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Access, control and ownership of land by the most vulnerable has the potential to transform the lives of families and ensure a better life and livelihood over generations. NEAP, Kampala, National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) (2007) State of the environment; report for Uganda 2006/2007. Only when these dynamics are properly understood can credible policies be designed to overcome the difficulties normally associated with oil dependence. Environmental Management 45, 284295 (2010). However, so far these attempts have not yielded significant results, and it is difficult to translate general principles into concrete material resources for environmental policy. By the time the National Resistance Movement took state power in 1986, this process was reversed and national development, including the strengthening of local governments, was taken up more seriously. 3.3. Find out why and join our collective effort to make a difference. Oil abundance typically generates valuable rents that tend to trigger violent forms of rent-seeking or greed-based insurgencies. This results in the emergence of several problems. This study explores how land governance and administration contributes to inequality in Uganda. However, over the years these incomes declined, and during the presidential election of July 2005, the graduated tax was completely abolished by national politicians. Sub-Saharan Africa. In a predominantly agricultural country, land can be an important resource for reducing poverty and inequality. Some observers regard the decentralization of environmental policy as even an institutionalized form of community participation (Ribot 2002). The lack of fiscal decentralization is therefore felt to constrain adequate environmental and natural resource management at the local level. In addition, environmental management is still a relatively new field; few specialists are available and education on this subject lags behind other subjects. Despite impressive growth rates and significant progress in reducing poverty, inequality widens in Uganda. This unfair distribution of land through direct transfers of public or customary land to individuals and companies increases inequality as wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few who further use such lands to generate more wealth. At the systemic level, local governance is affected by the policy and legal frameworks within which the local governments operate and by the rules and practices that govern the relations of local governmental authorities with other actors (Romeo 2003). Evidence from rural Uganda. However, there is growing skepticism surrounding this approach. , , Sat Jun 3, 2023 12:19 PM Last update on: Sat Jun 3, 2023 12:21 PM, : . Africas natural resources and geopolitical realities. The end result may be that the DEO is the only staff member defending environmental interests in a local political arena. Finally, decentralization is a dynamic political process that will probably never be finished; new subjects will arise, scientific or technological innovations will change optimal policy solutions, and political priorities may promote interventions through other levels of government. This makes it difficult to effectively integrate crosscutting issues such as the protection of environmental and natural resources (Brinkerhoff and Kamugasha 1998). For instance, in many districts the District Environment Committees and Local Environment Committees are nonexistent or do not function well. Using a theoretical framework designed by North, Wallis and Weingast, and a game theoretic model developed by Robert Bates, it examines the potential impact of these rents in four countries, namely Ghana, Liberia, Uganda and Tanzania, conditioned on the nature of the current political equilibrium. However, most of Chinas researches on LRA table focused on theoretical construction. Natural resources underpin the livelihoods of many among the poorest The poor are often highly dependent for their livelihoods on common property natural resources, which include fallow fields, forests, fishing grounds, pastureland and wetlands. Put ordinary people before wealthy investors, Extreme inequality and essential services, Covid-19 vaccine: demand protection for everyone, Survival Of The Richest: How Billionaires Are Amassing Eye-watering Wealth Amid Crisis, Say 'Enough' to violence against women and girls. These donors justified their interference with the claim that user-based natural resource management is the most reliable, cost-effective, and sustainable method for as long as the population is adequately educated and made aware of the importance and potential wealth of natural resources (Odwedo 1995, p. 2). The pollution of surface water is an acute environmental problem because surface water is a primary source of drinking water for a large part of the population. However, in the environmental domain, the achievementsboth in the extent of local participation and accountability and in the social and environmental outcomesseem to be limited and to vary across districts. HVn6y$(olHnD@*t3CIqM At the institutional level, the impact relates to local government structures, procedures, and operating rules, all of which frame and govern the activities of personnel. Only after national and international protest was the plan (temporarily?) One particular complaint from the DEOs on this problem is that local politicians are regularly not trained or informed enough to understand the long-term environmental effects of their decisions. Our conclusions focus on the need to balance administrative staff and local politicians, the mainstreaming of local environmental policy, and the role of international donors. In recent years, the situation has worsened due to the government giving away publicly owned land or acquiescing in illegal land grabbing. For local communities and indigenous peoples, land rights are not just an abstract concept they're a matter of survival. Environmental measures may, for instance, restrict access to natural resources such as wetlands and forests and such restrictions may not be very popular among the constituencies of elected local politicians. Multiple environmentalities and politics of scale in governing Laos protected areas, Environmental governance under Bolsonaro: dismantling institutions, curtailing participation, delegitimising opposition, Environmental justice and REDD+safeguards in Laos: Lessons from an authoritarian political regime, Fiscal decentralization, government environmental preference, and regional environmental governance efficiency: evidence from China, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6551905.stm, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6680637.stm, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0. This situation understandably leads to conflicts between different (groups of) local actors, which should be solved by clearly dividing responsibilities and requiring specialized agencies to integrate their activities into a coherent local environmental and natural resource management policy. Politicians often find it difficult to manage the interrelationship between policy formulation and policy implementation, which results repeatedly in their interference with implementing measures that previously had been agreed upon by the local council. The decentralization of natural resource management in Uganda effectively started in the late 1990s and took different forms. Land administration is inadequately resourced and performing very poorly in service delivery. Specialized agencies such as the UWA and UFA constitute dedicated and centralized structures and have local staff who must work with the DEO and other local environmental institutions. Since the early 1990s, many countries have promoted decentralized environmental governance as part of a broader trend toward the decentralization of governmental responsibilities; this decentralization is designed to improve effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, and democracy. A related, permanent tension is the lack of a mechanism in Uganda to reconcile local authority (horizontal) and sectoral agency (vertical) responsibilities and activities; this lack undermines the coordination of resources that should lead to better environmental management. The results are therefore moderated by national political histories and cultures, by the specific dynamics involved in the interaction between national and local level politics, and by divisions of social class, ethnicity, and gender. Tensions between administrative staff and politicians in the district are the consequence of the different kinds of legitimacy they invoke for their choices and decisions. Journal of Environmental Policy and Management 48:709731, Larson AM, Soto F (2008) Decentralization of natural resource governance regimes. It is currently engaged in lobbying for law reforms toensure that issues of women stand out in the laws and policies. We analyze and compare the macro-economic and welfare effects of alternative government expenditure policies given the resource potential and revenues un-der the current fiscal regime in Uganda. As a result, the possibilities for carving out a specific domain for local environmental policy are limited because problems cannot be isolated as specifically environmental. Trees are also used for charcoal burning, which is a lucrative activity since most households use charcoal for cooking. Without access to so important a resource as land, the poor have no route to exit poverty. In addition, different policy goals compete heavily for resources available in the districts general budget, and the environmental sector is relatively weak in this competition (see Table4). Poverty is more than twice as prevalent in rural as urban areas. However, the Wildlife Statute and Policy already rules out the possibility of compensation cases on crop damage, thus limiting the options available to address this problem. WebClimate is Ugandas most valuable natural resource. Institutionally, decentralization in Uganda is built on a hierarchical structure of local councils (LCs) that stretches from the village (LC1) through the parish (LC2), the subcounty (LC3), the county (LC4), and the district (LC5). In the same speech, the Minister also announced new allocation formula for the distribution of these resources since the lack of a clear criterionhas been noted by Parliament and other stakeholders as an area of concern (Daily Monitor, June 13, 2008). This last element appears to have been a largely unilateral decision made by the central government. %PDF-1.4 Advancing the right of people living in poverty to sustainable livelihoods has been a cornerstone of Oxfams work for many decades. The country seems to have a decentralized environmental management configuration drawn by the central authorities and handed over to the different districts (LC5) for implementation and execution. However, decentralization is not just a technocratic and administrative effort, but a political one as well. The decentralization of environmental and natural resource management is often cited as a simple and attractive way to improve environmental policy. On average, nearly 90% of the total expenditures of local authorities in Uganda are funded by the central government, although the extent of this reliance varies among different districts. An examination of the extensive experience of decentralized environmental governance in Uganda may offer useful insights into the relevance of these explanations and help governments understand whether such difficulties can be overcome. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Uganda Accelerator Lab and the National Forestry Authority (NFA) launched the Uganda Natural Resource Information System (NARIS), designed to monitor and mediate deforestation throughout Uganda to protect the countrys forests and biodiversity. Conservation and Society 5:586611, Caulfield JL (2006) The politics of bureau reform in sub-Saharan Africa. Uganda is confronted with similar problems. Ugandas soils are some of the most fertile in Africa. While women constitute 73 percent of the agricultural workforce, they own only 7 percent of the land. First, these challenges include tensions that emerge between the DEO and local politicians. National Geographic Society is a 501 (c)(3) organization. Whereas it is written based on the Ugandan perspective, it's a comparative analysis across petro-states. This move stripped local authorities of their main local source of income. Political decentralization became popular in the 1980s and continued to gain the support of many African governments in the 1990s. This growth has improved manageability, although with approximately 30 million inhabitants in Uganda, each district still includes approximately 360,000 inhabitants. Decentralization in the forestry sector has contributed to greater inefficiency, as the transfer of powers is mired in a confusing array of legal and policy changes. Development and Change 32:657679, Iversen V, Fjeldstad OH, Bahiigwa G, Ellis F, James R (2006) Private tax collectionremnant of the past or a way forward? Even as GDP figures tell a story of success, the poor get poorer, while the rich get richer. Even as GDP figures tell a story of success, the poor get poorer, while the rich get richer. These constituents do not always support the introduction and implementation of environmental protection measures (Caulfield 2006). Tensions between civil servants and local politicians and between central and decentralized levels of government and the challenges of mainstreaming environmental protection have all complicated the decentralization process. For its 6th edition, the Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa, held in Bahir Dar on Lake Tana in Ethiopia from April 22 to 23, 2017, focused on the theme of Natural Resource Governance in Africa. This enables us to project annual production, fixed and variable costs, and government revenues for given global oil price paths. In effect, this decision was a major step back in the decentralization process. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. ational policies prioritize economic growth through privatization and consolidation of land for big infrastructural or agricultural projects. In a country where most people depend directly on land, laws and policies governing its use and management support big investors rather than ordinary Ugandans. Many environmentalists consider the local community to be the most appropriate custodian of environmental management since they are better able to understand and intervene in environmental problems because they are closer to both the problem and the solution (Lane and McDonald 2005, p. 710), although this is also contested. It looks at factors that have impacted poverty and vulnerability, and how policies, laws, regulations and cultural practices can be made more inclusive. Grants or loans to implement certain environment-related programs ( Bazaara 2003 ) Devolution in Uganda each! Highly mobile, socially and economically differentiated and possess competing interests and values in.! Its abundance of fertile soil JS ( 2001 ) decentralization, local environmental management Authority ( NEMA ) ( )... 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