Karamoja Development, where is the people’s agenda?

Simon Peter Longoli, Moroto

Let’s face it. ‘Karamoja development’ is a complicated idea and has a philosophical side to it too. Development itself attracts a lot of different definitions and means different things to different people. I would like to leave out the issue of semantics and its relation to the Karamoja situation for a different day and in this case use UNDP’s definition – the ability to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living and to be able to participate in the life of the community.

I have been a participatory development junkie, irrespective of my limitedness to the Karamoja situation, and that I am discovering and learning about it at every opportunity. It is not rare that I stumble in to evidence of acts of exclusion of Karimojong in development processes, and if there was someone who did not suspect that the Government of Uganda’s development interests in Karamoja are sinister at worst and non-inclusive at best, that person should have got their answer last week. It came in East Africa’s major newspaper.

Tororo cement has ferried at least thirty trucks of limestone out of Karamoja on a daily basis for 12 solid years. Zoom the picture and see its list of benefits to the region!

I have held until now, since it was published, the Karamoja supplement in The East African newspaper (June 21^st – 27^th) in which government calls for investment in Karamoja, utilizing the positives that have come out of the region recently namely what we love calling ‘relative peace’ and a tokenism in infrastructure, namely the Nakapiripirit – Moroto road that’s being upgraded and mineral finds in the region as attraction.

“Karamoja, the land of immense potential” read the headline, “Karamoja opens its doors” read another, “Uganda’s next mineral province”, “Karamoja has enormous potential”, were among the headlines in the 24 page ad whose money would have made more sense if it was properly invested in the region.

Karamoja has not opened its doors, not that I am aware of. It would probably make sense if it read something like ‘Government opens up Karamoja doors for development (read investment),’ which would be an honest expression of an erroneous approach by the government to developing the region.

To Kampala, development will be brought to Karamoja, probably airlifted, unless they are woken up to the reality that nothing works if people are not involved. They rarely wake up to this reality of course but as media reports this week indicated, a Karamoja Minister during one of the photo opportunities called on villagers in Kotido to till for themselves, because nobody would do that for them.

Karimojong at a traditional parliament (AKIRIKET). We are least understood in this country

Now, this is the real deal. Nobody can claim to feed Karamoja, or get Karamoja out of the current crisis. But talking of the crisis, you arrive at the feet of another immense problem, a misdiagnosis of the challenges that face Karamoja. Its current food, famine and socio-political disorder are a result of the collapse of the cattle economy. What then would ensure a steady, even if slow, recovery and sustainability in food production would be what the local population are experts at.

The government goes ahead and declares in bought space ‘cattle keeping was one time the major economic activity in the region’. If this is not the major economic activity now, what is? Only Kampala knows the answer.

Government is pursuing an open door economic growth policy in Karamoja, something fraught with a lot of challenges in both the intention and the process. The total sum of these policy challenges is exclusion of the local people in decision making.

Allow me to theorize a little. Since, in my view, Karamoja is not ready for industrialization given the numerous statistics (I do not rely on statistics, I see things here) including the country’s highest illiteracy rate (stagnating at 88%), an open door economic growth policy which is majorly based on mineral extraction with its adverse environmental impacts will leave Karimojong landless. Social and environmental impacts are going to be adverse, and Karimojong after the industrial period will not be as we know them today.

But the mother of all questions is (works perfectly in Ngakarimojong – ‘totokeng angakiro’), are Karimojong involved in the design of the industrial agenda? Are they involved in finding (as if it was lost), a suitable livelihood option? Are they involved in the work that hundreds of Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Karamoja do?

It is the reason why the advert, in addition to dismissing Karimojong culture as corrupt, immoral and wicked; was simply a waste of space, ink, money and evidence to decades of a conspiracy by the state of Uganda to stymie Karamoja development. It is the reason access to a decent life, resources in Karamoja remains a pipe dream.

I insist pastoralism is still Karamoja’s main economic activity, though in an historical slump, and many Karimojong contend that that’s their choice out of the current economic crisis. It is a cattle economy in crisis, not a crop-growing economy. It therefore goes without saying that you do not revive a cattle economy by planting vegetables or potatoes. Karimojong have practiced agriculture before, but it had a name. It was called survival agriculture!

Whichever way you look at it, it is a definitive moment in Karamoja as the era of ‘relative peace’ sets in and the region is at crossroads.

Where Karamoja will go next after these tumultuous decades, and the new challenges related to land and natural resources? In the post conflict discourse, the voice of the local Karimojong is missing. Government is pursuing an economic agenda, widely marketed to open Karamoja to investors, while the local population remains bemused, ill-prepared for the challenges that the government-set agenda will portend. The voice of the herders and, yes, cultivators are conspicuously missing.

To the GOU, cattle represent Karamoja’s past, to us, it is the future

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