Four ways to boost investment in women-led small businesses

Posted on 6 min read

Oxfam’s conversations and projects with entrepreneurs across the globe reveal a big gender gap in access to finance, says Windy Massabni. Women in business tell us that better support for them will include loan guarantees, alternative credit scoring systems and building the gender awareness of lenders.

Women selling mangos on the streets of Oyam, Uganda (picture: Windy Massabni)

“In Uganda where I come from, women still do not have the right of inheritance. All the assets and properties go to the male heir,” explains Marion Etiang, the founder of the Shea Care company in Uganda. “It’s up to men to give what they deem fit to the female in the family. Typically, when a woman goes to the bank to seek a loan for her business, the bank would require collateral which is often asset-based, even if she has the cash flow.”

Marion highlights a major root cause that holds women-owned businesses back: discriminatory gender norms over inheritance capital, capital that is therefore only available to men, not women, to grow their businesses. Such regressive gender norms lie behind the glaring gender gap in access to business finance.

BRINGING INVESTORS CLOSER TO WOMEN-LED SMES

In the realm of entrepreneurship, there’s often a disconnect between investors and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). While much effort is dedicated to making women-led SMEs “investment-ready”, little attention is paid to fostering “SME-readiness” or openness among investors or financial institutions. This oversight perpetuates inequalities in access to finance, particularly for women entrepreneurs.

But what if we could bring investors closer to women-led SMEs? In a survey conducted as part of Oxfam Novib’s project to support SMEs, the Impact SME Development programme, lack of collateral or assets was cited by women-owned businesses as a major obstacle. We also found that while 57% of businesses owned by men and 68% with mixed gender ownership sought external finance, only 46% of female-owned businesses did so.

Interestingly, women-owned SMEs had a 95% success rate in securing external funding, compared to 77% for male-owned and 93% for mixed-gender-owned businesses. This suggests that women entrepreneurs may be more reserved in seeking external funding. This is backed up by research by the Financial Alliance for Women, which found that women who are customers of financial service providers were more “risk conscious” then men, and more likely to sacrifice a potential upside in exchange for lower risk or less debt.

So how can we support women entrepreneurs to get the finance they deserve and that can help their firms thrive? Tackling root causes such as sexist inheritance customs and laws will of course be crucial for long-term change – but alongside this the women we talked to pointed out how NGOs and other support organisations can take action now to help them in four broad areas.

1. LOAN GUARANTEE SCHEMES

Many women emphasised the potential effectiveness of long-term guarantee schemes and partnerships. These local guarantees effectively protect financial institutions from losses if borrowers default, incentivising them to lend to women-owned businesses, even without collateral.

Abrar Shahriyar Mridha, Enterprise Development Project Manager at Oxfam GB, oversees a multi-country programme providing access to sustainable capital to help SMEs grow, and says such loan guarantees can transform the prospects for women-owned enterprises. “Partnering with banks and financial institutions gives us leverage to access women-led MSMEs, making them more bankable. These enterprises have created almost 18,500 jobs for women and reached 55,000 farmers, with 49% women in leadership positions.” Abrar’s example vividly illustrates the transformative effect that guarantee schemes can have on women-owned enterprises, fostering economic empowerment and gender equality.

2. ALTERNATIVE CREDIT SCORING – AND INCLUDING “SOCIAL PERFORMANCE”

Women are more reliable borrowers then men. Financial Alliance Women found that men are far more likely to be failing to keep up with repayments than women. Yet women continue to be underserved when it comes to accessing loans.

Different ways of assessing credit-worthiness  can help. That means analysing cash flow and business performance, rather than relying solely on traditional collateral-based assessments.

What could make a big difference is looking not just at conventional metrics but at the social capital created. Hassan Hajam, the Executive Director of Platform Impact, the Impact SME programme’s main partner in Cambodia, says: “Investors should design innovative, alternative financial instruments for impact-driven SMEs We have to move away from the typical balance sheet, profit-and loss statement, cash flow etc.. by integrating social and environmental dimensions at the end of the profit-and-loss statement if we want to see real impact thrive.”

By prioritising investments in businesses that can show such “social performance” – supporting gender equality and empowering women economically – investors can address disparities in access to finance.

3. FLEXIBLE PRODUCTS WITH SMALLER LOANS

An often-overlooked aspect of addressing gender inequality in access to finance is reassessing the size of investments. Many investors typically focus on offering large loans, often exceeding $1 million, which may not align with the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially those owned by women. These businesses frequently require smaller investments ranging from $100,000 to $500,000 to scale effectively.

Recognizing this disparity, initiatives such as our newly launched Pepea Fund aim to bridge the gap by providing smaller loans with a gender-lens tailored to SMEs, in this case with a focus on climate change mitigation. While we acknowledge that smaller investments may pose higher costs for investors, it’s imperative to take account of the social impact of such investments alongside the financial returns. We offer “mezzanine” loans, flexible loans with flexible terms that do not necessarily require tangible assets as security. This flexibility makes them more accessible to women entrepreneurs who may lack traditional collateral, such as property or equipment.

4. GENDER DIVERSITY AND GENDER AWARENESS IN FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS.

Ensuring lenders have a gender-diverse team is also crucial in addressing the biases and barriers faced by women entrepreneurs. This requires gender balance at all levels of a financial institution – from the executive level to front line staff.

At the ANDE x Sasin Business School Women Impact Entrepreneurship Day 2024, one business leader shared her experience of intimidation while applying for a loan at a bank.

As the head of a sustainable packaging company in Thailand, she had all the necessary documentation for the loan and met all the requirements, yet faced extensive questioning from the predominantly male staff. She felt compelled to prove her legitimacy, showcase her qualifications, and justify her ability to manage her business alongside motherhood.

This unsettling encounter underscores the need both for gender balance and for gender-sensitivity training for bank staff so they can better serve women. Alongside this lenders  will need a gender-lens investment strategy, fostering an environment where women entrepreneurs feel respected and supported, without encountering undue scrutiny or bias.

BUT WE ALSO NEED TO KEEP CAMPAIGNING ON ROOT CAUSES

Initiatives such as guarantee schemes, alternative credit scoring methods, and promoting gender diversity in fund management teams are essential steps in bridging the gender gap in SME financing. However, while these efforts do help alleviate immediate barriers, they do not address the root causes of gender disparities.

NGOs such as Oxfam and enterprise support organisations have a crucial role to play, not just in providing support through initiatives like those above, but also in advocating for policies and practices that tackle root causes, that change norms and systems and lay the foundations for true gender equity in access to finance.

This article was first published on Oxfam’s Views & Voices blog

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Windy Massabni is an Impact SME development specialist based at Oxfam Novib in the Hague. She coordinates the influencing, learning and training component of the programme in all countries.

Development Dialogue 19 | Why we need alternatives to mainstream education — and how the ‘Nook’ model of learning can show us the way

Posted on 7 min read

Contemporary education models continue to reflect and perpetuate colonial educational priorities and by virtue are intricately tied to goals of shaping ‘children as future adults’ and creating a ‘productive’ workforce through education. In the process, they exclude marginalised groups of people, denying them the opportunity to learn and thrive. Alternatives to mainstream education models have been sought all over the world and are gaining traction. In this blog article, Anoushka Gupta discusses ‘Nooks’, alternative community learning spaces that non-profit organisation Project DEFY has introduced in several Asian and African countries, and shows how they are transforming the way in which people approach learning.

Learners working on projects during the design phase. Source: Project DEFY.

Situating systemic challenges within mainstream education models

The outdatedness of several mainstream education models in their failure to enable individuals and communities to respond to emerging challenges have long been recognised. Yet, not much has been done in terms of questioning the foundational principles of these models and in finding enduring alternatives. Such alternatives are needed particularly in Asia and Africa, where several systemic challenges confront educational systems.

It is well known, for example, that the founding principles of schooling systems rest on the assumption that child development is a linear process — it is thereby assumed that a child of a particular age must learn certain skills and competencies before progressing further[1]. As a result, as children move through school, their worth is increasingly tied to their performance in standardized examinations, placing immense pressure on them to do well and limiting opportunities to explore interests or enjoy the process of learning. Metrics to understand what constitutes ‘success’ over the years (through assessment results or further educational trajectories) have standardised experiences and divorced education from its local context[2].

Moreover, differences in material wealth and social location play an important role in understanding variations in ‘success’ defined through assessment results. For example, Dalit and Adivasi communities in India who were historically excluded from economic resources and formal educational systems face challenges in meeting the uniform testing criteria, which puts them at a disadvantage in many disciplines and professions even today[3]. In Uganda, high rates of teenage pregnancy and associated stigma reproduce exclusion and drive girls to drop out[4].

These instances demonstrate that mainstream schooling is built on rigid eligibility rules and criteria for success that fail to secure an environment where learners feel safe and heard and where they can explore their interests instead of sticking to uniform curricula, often detached from their own realities. In the next section, I will show how the Nook learning model seeks to contend with such hegemonic education models and creates safe spaces in which learners can thrive without excessive pressure to perform.

Questioning why we learn

First conceptualised in 2016 by Abhijit Sinha, founder of the India-based non-profit organisation Project DEFY,[5]Nooks are physical community learning environments located in under-resourced places that are accessible to learners irrespective of their age, gender, marital status, and socio-economic background. These spaces are built on questioning the fundamental purpose of learning, which for mainstream models often is creating a productive workforce by teaching them standardised knowledge and skills instead of centring interest as the main driver of learning.

Sinha’s experiment started in a small village in Karnataka, India. Disillusioned with his own educational experiences in one of India’s top engineering colleges, he envisioned a space equipped with basic tools and without strict instructions or rules that would push learners to really explore their interests and would encourage resourcefulness, teamwork, and innovation. These spaces later expanded, went through several iterations, and became the ‘Nooks’ they are today. And they continue to be adapted to new conditions and the needs of learners and communities. Since 2016, 41 Nooks have been set up and 32 are currently operational through partnerships with local organisations across Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, India, and Bangladesh.

The freedom to choose how (and what) to learn

Nooks follow ‘self-designed learning’ as the pedagogical orientation where the core belief rests on learners defining and designing their own educational goals in an enabling environment. Each space is equipped with basic tools, raw materials, the internet, and laptops and has two fellows who act as mentors.

The Nook follows a cycle-based structure comprising four stages:

  1. Exploration — fellow-guided sessions that introduce learners to diverse learning areas (from robotics to art to storytelling).
  2. Goal Setting — the identification and articulation by learners of a specific learning goal based on their interesteither from areas in the exploration stage or something totally different, as well as their definition of the steps and resources required to translate the goal into a project.
  3. Design — the execution by learners of the project, which they spend approximately three to six months on (the length of the cycle differs depending on the Nook).
  4. Exhibition — the presentation of their work at an event known as an ‘external exhibition’, which is used as a platform for showcasing learner projects to community members and external stakeholders.

Conversations, reflections, and enjoyment

In each cycle, beyond working on projects, learners gather twice a day in opening and closing circles to discuss any troubles they have faced, be it related to their project or something that bothers them in general. Reflections during these designated discussion hours are meant to build a sense of community in the Nook. Many learners have chosen to take up problems in their community – for instance, learners are trying to tackle environmental pollution in the Barishal Nook in Bangladesh. This approach to learning allows individuals to share challenges without judgment and allows them to flexibly explore their interests without assessments or pressures of completion. It intends to recentre the role of learners’ agency and to foster an understanding of individuals as part of a larger collective.

An opening circle in one of the Nooks. Source: Project DEFY.

The Nooks have also had a wider impact. First, self-designed learning naturally implies that projects differ across and within Nooks. A common thread, however, is that learners tend to pick up problems they see in their surroundings or delve deeper into an area they were curious about. In the Bulawayo Nook in Zimbabwe, for example, a learner articulated his desire to build an artificial limb, explaining, “Personally, I need it. I would also want to help other people in my community who are disabled once I achieve this goal. The cost of artificial legs is very expensive in the country so that is why I decided to make a cheaper and innovative one”.

Several learners also revealed that their goals challenged normative gendered ideas of learning and work. For instance, in the Gahanga Nook in Rwanda, a female learner spoke of how she intended to learn tailoring initially. However, with exposure to different areas, she discovered her interest in welding despite initial resistance from her family. With time and through encouragement from peers and fellows, she created a hanger and a garden chair, ultimately convincing her family to support her.

Lastly, Nooks foster a community identity. Before Nooks are set up, a community mapping exercise is carried out to understand how the space potentially adds value to the lives of community members. The eventual goal of each Nook is for learners to drive the concept independently. While Nooks are still young and learners running the Nook independently are yet to be located, several seeds of leadership from within Nooks have been sown. Beyond taking on day-to-day responsibilities, steering opening and closing circles, and mentoring fellow learners, the transition of several learners to Nook facilitator roles is encouraging.

Expanding the ‘idea’ behind and beyond Nooks — some final takeaways

Globally, enhancing access to schooling is hailed as a marker of development. Yet, the exclusion and disempowerment that are part of both the design and implications of such beliefs are rarely questioned. In contexts where disempowerment stems from wider socio-economic barriers that trickle down to schooling, Nooks demonstrate the value of learning spaces that allow flexibility to explore one’s interests without imposing restrictions on what to learn. In turn, the emphasis on contextual learning and engagement with community challenges as part of the learning journey seeks to upturn individualised notions of education.

Finally, while ‘community-led development’ is increasingly used as the go-to buzzword among development practitioners and donors, very few are truly willing to let go of predetermined criteria to measure the ‘output’ and ‘outcomes’ of education interventions. Truly recognising the agency of the learners and communities means first questioning our own metrics of what constitutes ‘success.’

This blog article draws on a recent working paper published by Project DEFY that can be accessed here

References:

[1] Prout, A. & James, A. (1997) ‘A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Childhood? Provenance, Promise and Problems’ in Prout, A. & James, A. (ed.) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood. Second edition. London: Falmer Press. pp. 7-32.

[2] Ydesen, C. and Andreasen, K. (2020) “Historical roots of the global testing culture in education,” Nordic studies in Education, 40(2), pp. 149-166. DOI: 10.23865/nse.v40.2229

[3] See Ch2 ‘School Education and Exclusion’ in India Exclusion Report 2013-14. pp.44-75. Available at: IndiaExclusionReport2013-2014.pdf (idsn.org)

[4] Study-report-on-Linkages-between-Pregnancy-and-School-dropout.pdf (faweuganda.org)

[5] For more on Project DEFY, see https://hundred.org/en/innovations/project-defy-design-education-for-yourself

About the author:

Anoushka Gupta is a researcher based out of India. Her research interests include child and youth wellbeing, understanding social exclusion, and utilising participatory methods in community-based research. She has worked extensively with non-profit organisations primarily in India on educational quality and community-based learning models. She previously majored in Social Policy as part of the MA in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam and holds a Bachelor’s degree in History from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.

Women’s Week 2023 |“I am a girl, not a woman”: how recognizing diverse girlhoods can foster the inclusion of young mothers in debates on womanhood and girlhood.

Posted on 0 min read

In Uganda, young mothers are predominantly called women, although some young mothers contest that representation and prefer to be called girls.  The normative insistence on categorizing young mothers as women despite girlhood being a transitional phase locks young mothers in an in-between category, a space in which they can be neither girls, nor children, nor women. International Women’s Day celebrations further risk widening the gap between such girls whose daily realities centre on survival, writes Annah Kamusiime. The need to recognize diverse girlhoods is a first step in ensuring that girls are included in discussions on womanhood and girlhood.

During one of the interviews I conducted in 2021 for my PhD research on representations of young motherhood, Nandi, a 16-year-old Ugandan mother, told me, “Even though I am a mother, I am a girl, not a woman”. Her statement is an example of the agentic manoeuvres of girls whose voice remains silenced and their existence pushed to the liminal space – liminal because as mothers, they are in an in-between category where they are not girls anymore, nor children, and nor women, especially when they are not married.

Being a parent is the main marker of transition to adulthood/womanhood; in most of Uganda others also include menarche, a sexual debut, and wifehood. But the young mothers I spoke to did not consider themselves to be adults – women – despite having borne children. And, having borne children, they were no longer children themselves. As a result, their needs as young mothers may not be adequately addressed by efforts that separately target girls, children, or women. Young mothers who fall into none of the marked categories of girl, child, or woman thus face marginalization and exclusion.  In this article, I discuss why the recognition of a distinct category of diverse girlhoods is necessary to further their inclusion – also in celebrating International Women’s Day.

 

‘Girl’ or ‘woman’? How words make worlds

The terms we use are not neutral – the way in which words are combined allows for certain meanings to flourish and for others to be minimized. For instance, consider these two statements: “The girl-child is pregnant” versus “The girl is pregnant”. Both can be used to describe an adolescent mother. But an emphasis on a pregnant girl as a child (as the first statement does) may elicit a different interpretation and response when compared to using only the word ‘girl’. And often such word choices are deliberate. Words make worlds; struggles over meaning are not just about semantics – they are strategic, they have an effect, they shape discourses, actions and rhetoric, and they are contested. Thus, there is a need to be reflexive on how we frame different categories of persons because conceptions shape engagement.

Another example that shows how words matter for girls: While I was writing this article, my 18-year-old daughter read it and told me that at school, their teacher told them that a girl becomes a woman on the day of her sexual debut. I asked her whether that mattered and whether it would make a difference if a girl would be referred to as a woman or a girl. Yes, she said, ‘girl’ and ‘woman’ mean different things, and it matters which is used. As in the case of Nandi, the labels  ‘woman’ placed on a ‘girl’ has specific connotations – it means she engaged in sexual intercourse yet she is expected to be asexual, she is a mother at the wrong time, and she has ruptured normative notions of conceptions of ideal childhood and youth because she is expected to be innocent.  As a result, young mothers are stigmatized and are seen as a threat to the social morals and social order, which fuels their exclusion.

These two examples show that yes, the label of a woman that is placed on girls who are young mothers matter to them even when everyone else may not acknowledge it. Many of the young mothers I have spoken to choose to be called girls, not children, or girl-children, or women. The failure to consider the desire for this distinct categorization means that these young mothers’ voices remain unheard. I therefore argue that we need to reimagine and reconstruct girlhood as diverse and distinct in policy, practice, and debates at different levels-national and international.

 

Girls just wanna be girls

Several renowned scholars studying girlhood, including those highlighted by Claudia Mitchell, have advocated for what they have referred to as the girl-method. Rather than continue to lump girls under either the categories ‘children’, ‘young women’, or ‘women’, they argue that it is vital to add ‘girls’ as a distinct category.  This would remove girls from the shadows and place them in the centre of the discussion on diverse girlhoods, including those of young mothers.

My argument above does not mean that we should dismiss distinct moments like the UN Decade of the Girl Child (1991-2001) and International Day of the Girl Child. Indeed, such moments have been and continue to be an open platform for considering and rethinking issues girls face. However, a merger of ‘girl’ with ‘child’ in what is celebrated as the day of the ‘girl-child’ has been problematized as being passive, essentialist, and homogenizing. My sentiments of the ‘girl-child’ label are that it emphasizes their innocence, vulnerability, and dependency and brings out connotations of powerlessness while also infantilizing girls.

It also poses a risk of illuminating the ‘child’ and marginalizing the ‘girl’ because the ‘child’ may take precedence over the ‘girl’. There are words which are nice sounding, such as ‘girl-child’, and the nicer they sound, the more useful they are for those seeking to establish their moral authority. To counter the risk of applying labels to exclude and marginalize girls, the category ‘girl’ ought to be conceptualized, deconstructed, and reconstructed from their perspective.

 

How International Women’s Day can exclude girls

This is my first ever blog article. I decided to write it because I wanted to reflect on how International Women’s Day (IWD) celebrations relate to the experiences of young mothers in urban poor locales, such as those that I have continued to engage with as part of my PhD research. In rethinking this year’s IWD theme (‘DigitALL: innovation and technology for gender equality’), several questions came to mind. For example, are girls considered in this debate on gender equality? How relevant is this debate on the role of technology and innovation for young mothers living in poor locales in Uganda where only 9% of the populations aged 15 years and above own a smart phone? Moreover, where only 8% of females use internet? And why should young mothers care about such discussions? How will tech-driven developments benefit them?

Unable to answer these questions, I decided to read up on International Women’s Day. What initially sparked IWD were spontaneous demonstrations to protest inhumane working conditions women faced and to press for improved working conditions. Other issues, such as the right of women to vote, were consequently included, and today IWD marks efforts to enact gender equality more broadly.

What is interesting is that International Women’s Day is assumed to be for everyone, everywhere, and is intended to celebrate and encourage collective action in pursuit of gender equality and extended rights for women. However, discussions about women’s suffrage, gender equality and parity are often far removed from the daily realities of many girls and women, including the young mothers in impoverished areas that I worked with – those who are primarily concerned with meeting their survival needs. In this way, specific categories of girls, or even women, including young mothers, may find themselves being excluded from efforts to enact gender equality and from celebrations of these.

International Women’s Day was initiated by working-class women and while it has since significantly highlighted the plight of women and efforts to close the gender gap, it is at a risk of becoming too universalized and corporatized to include women who face a range of intersecting struggles that stretch beyond voting rights and workplace equity. In celebrating International Women’s Day, it is important to remember those girls and women whose voices still go unheard, who move around in the shadows, and whose intersecting struggles leave them far behind.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Annah Kamusiime is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS-EUR). Her research interests are in gender and adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). She is also a Director of Programmes at Nascent Research and Development Organization Uganda.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

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The East African Community’s regional economic integration efforts are starting to pay off – here’s why to take note

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Good news about Africa always seems to travel slowly. The East African Community has successfully been pushing for regional economic integration in East Africa, but not everyone has gotten wind of it. ISS researchers Peter van Bergeijk and Binyam Demena in their recently published book called ‘Trade and Investment in East Africa’ show how the EAC’s many successes and failures can provide several opportunities – and lessons – for the Netherlands and other countries seeking to further strengthen regional economic integration.

Uhuru Monument by Arthur Buliva

For the past few years, the seven member states of the East African Community (EAC) – the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, and Tanzania – have been working hard on furthering regional economic integration. The group of countries recognize the importance of foreign trade and investment (FTI) for their economic development and have started to reap the benefits: Kenya and Tanzania have already been reclassified as Middle Income Countries (MICs) by the World Bank.

Yet not much is known about these efforts in the Netherlands. Our recently published book, Trade and Investment in East Africa, is an attempt to showcase the EAC’s efforts by analysing these developments, identifying possible bottlenecks, and thereby also outlining perspectives that are important for the Dutch trade and development policy. We summarise some of book’s the key takeaways below to show why countries seeking to improve their regional economic integration should take note of the book.

 

Increased trade bring benefits, but it’s no free lunch

Economically, the EAC is a remarkable success. Africa is a patchwork of overlapping regional organizations that are all working towards economic integration, which is somewhat inevitable (just as the Netherlands is a member both of the EU and the Benelux). This leads to inconsistency and inefficiency in trade between countries but, as one of the studies in the book shows, the EAC suffers relatively little from this.

One possible reason for its success could be its sectoral productivity. In the book chapter, the authors using microdata on firms show that sectoral productivity patterns differ between EAC members: the countries differ in their strengths and weaknesses (what economists call their comparative advantage). Because of the different comparative advantages, it pays to specialize in what you are good at, also to increase intra-regional trade. Uganda can specialize in food where it has a comparative advantage and in the same vein we find different candidates for different countries: Kenya can specialize in furniture, Rwanda in non-metallic manufacturing, and Tanzania in printing and publishing.

That fertile base for specialization and increased trade is good news because the export premium (the higher productivity of internationally operating firms) is substantial for EAC member states and greater than the average for sub-Saharan countries. Higher productivity can be translated into higher per capita income, which is considered necessary for economic growth. Incidentally, this is not a free lunch and requires related policies (training, income support), because amongst the high-productivity winners there are also clear losers in low-productivity sectors.

 

More investment, less bureaucratic red tape needed

Beyond dealing with those sectors that are lagging, the area faces several policy challenges. The book contains some five case studies[1] that reveal some of the main challenges, which include a lack of institutional support and private sector investments. Many sectors, such as rice farming, seaweed fishing and leather production, lack investments by firms that can help these countries position themselves higher up in international value chains. State institutions on the other hand are important both for ensuring the quality of export products and for funding research and development into product-specific improvements.

Another challenge relates to a lack of investment by firms in primary sectors. For example, while Tanzania is one of the largest regional exporters of live cattle, its lack of formal slaughterhouses and leather processing facilities prevents it from expanding its leather production sector. As a result, it needs to import shoes and other simple leather products, and the upscaling of the sector is hardly possible.

When it comes to trade with the EAC region, the main bottlenecks are related to difficulties getting import and export products across borders without delay. One study contained in the book reveals bottlenecks that impede trade both within and outside of the EAC. The challenges include inadequate (air)port management and excessive bureaucratic red tape, which are compounded by the lack of a one-stop-shop approach; in principle, these are factors that could be resolved without having to make major financial investments but require a change in practices and training to implement newly developed systems.

 

Offering aid in addition to trade

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation can learn several things from the EAC in doing trade and investment better. One important finding that can be considered in the Netherlands is that trade cannot work without a certain amount of aid. An empirical study by Sylvanus Afesorgbor of European trade with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries with which Europe has a special development aid relationship shows that trade promotion appears to lead to economic development only if it is complemented by development aid. One reason is that additional policies are necessary to help individuals that work in sectors with low productivity that lose due to international specialization.

However, the similarities have been somewhat overlooked. From this perspective alone, it is unfortunate that the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation’s new strategic policy paper, ‘Doen waar Nederland goed is in’ (‘Do what the Netherlands does best’), does not consider the EAC as an economic community of nations. While some individual EAC countries are mentioned, the emphasis is on the Netherlands’ long-standing foreign policy strategy focused on the Horn of Africa.

This leaves the opportunities that lie in the EAC out of the policy picture. For example, the Netherlands can play an important role in helping the EAC address the logistical challenges hampering trade, in particular with regard to (air)port management. It also has much to offer African policy makers through its own regional economic integration experiences, from Benelux to the EU. Moreover, several large Dutch companies also have a foothold in Tanzania, which illustrates that this is already recognized as an interesting market.

Our book brings together economists from the Global South that provide a relevant multidimensional analysis of how sensible policies can be designed that move trade and development in the same direction.

 

[1] The case studies are a comparative analysis of the leather industry by Fauzul Muna, a survey of common bean smallholder farmers in Arusha by Eliaza Mkuna, an econometric analysis of Tanzanian horticultural export by William Georde, a survey of the seaweed sector in Zanzibar by Wahida Makame, and a structured review of cross-border cooperatives in the EAC by Gerard Dushimimana.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Peter van Bergeijk is Professor of International Economic Relations and Macroeconomics at the Hague-based Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University (ISS); one of the leading educational and research institutes in the field of development cooperation in Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

Binyam Afewerk Demena is an empirical economist with expertise across economic disciplines focusing on the area of development, environment, and health. He is an Assistant professor the Hague-based Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University (ISS).

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

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From sacred to clinical: how the lack of proper burials during the Covid-19 pandemic affected communities in Uganda

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When Covid-19 started spreading across the globe, the World Health Organization issued strict burial guidelines in a bid to curb the spread of the virus. In Uganda, the national health department took over the burial of Covid-19 victims, interring them quickly and without adhering to proper cultural and religious procedures. In a country where death rituals form a central part of the grieving process, the undignified burials that took place during the pandemic have had severe psychological consequences for bereaved families and communities.

In the Global South and in Africa particularly, most development studies research concentrates on survival issues; economic needs and death/loss are generally discussed in relation to poverty or AIDS, while the few available bereavement studies focus on the grieving experiences of individuals or groups.[1] However, injustices are also apparent in processes of grieving; unpacking the way in which grief is collectively and individually experienced is a necessary first step in addressing these injustices. Here, I show how the strict burial guidelines imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic were received in Uganda and why we should take note.

 

The many facets of death rituals

Death rituals, defined as “forms of expressions and connections performed by individuals, groups of people or communities in communication with the living-dead and the Supreme Being”[2], connect the dead and living in Africa. These rituals serve to mediate between the physical and spiritual worlds as the spirit of the deceased crosses between worlds. Many African families for example have a graveyard within the compound they live in because they believe that the dead remains part of the living family.[3]

During death rituals, the bereaved family plays a direct role in preparing the body, washing the body and shaving the deceased’s head; domestic animals are also slaughtered for ritual purposes. Slaughtering a sheep, for example, is meant to please the ancestors so that they do not demand another death.[4] And a death is communicated to the entire community as part of the ritual. A study of death rituals in Bugumba in Uganda shows how community members participate in death rituals once a large bonfire has been lit in the compound of the deceased to communicate bereavement to everyone in the community.[5]

Other death-related rites and beliefs include a belief among the Ethur of northeastern Uganda in life after death, with the spirit of the dead person travelling to the realm of ‘Obanga’, as well as the common belief that the dead are spirits that can send curses if disturbed.[6] Not performing death rituals would be considered one way of disturbing the dead. Similarly, in northern Uganda, a harmonious relationship between the living and dead is maintained to avoid ‘cen’, or vengeful spirits, by performing rituals.[7]

Death rituals are considered so important that in cases where a bereaved family lacks adequate resources to perform crucial rituals, community members may contribute the required resources – something that is reciprocal. In studying bereavement, the concept of Ubuntu[8] helps us to understand how cohesion and solidarity are maintained during and after burial through communal rituals and mourning. People travel from far away to participate in death rituals or attend funerals because death comes with misfortune for those who don’t participate in rituals. Paying close attention to the rituals while maintaining solidarity is a key healing factor from loss due to death.[9]

 

The inability to say goodbye properly

Limitations on death rituals during the Covid-19 pandemic and the interment of Covid-19 victims by health authorities thus caused great distress in Uganda and beyond. During the pandemic, following protocols issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) to curb the spread of the virus, strict guidelines for burials were issued by the government of Uganda under its Ministry of Health. They included limiting the handling of the deceased body to health/burial teams only, wrapping the body in waterproof plastic bags before handing it over for burial, and preventing the public from seeing the body. Family members and other mourners had to stay two meters away from the body.

Many district governments came up with further burial guidelines that included the time at which the burial was to take place, the prohibition of death announcements over radios to prevent the burials from attracting crowds, and ensuring a burial would take no more than two hours. The burial team, dressed in white wellington boots, full plastic protective suits, goggles, face shields, and gloves besides preparing the body secured the burial sites, dug the graves, and conducted the burials. They were nicknamed ‘Angels’ because they appeared mystical to the community members.

 

Indignation and defiance

Besides leading to personal suffering, these clinical burials also led to political dissatisfaction. The burial teams were heckled and some attacked for not following burial traditions. This is because in Uganda, a dead person is very special to the community and must be treated with full respect during the entire burial process. Burials were considered undignified because of the rough handling of the dead and the mourning of those close to the deceased in isolation, when this would usually take place as part of the burial process.[10] The departure from the traditional rituals led to psychosocial suffering (distress for bereaved families) that affecting healing, since no space was provided to express grief.

The community felt that the creation of distance between the deceased person and mourners, the wrapping of the body in artificial materials, and the handling of the body by seemingly alien entities did not ensure sufficient respect. The mystery and criticism was inspired by a deep distrust of the government during the pandemic, leading to allegations such as government’s burying of empty coffins and speculation that Covid-19 deaths concealed the trafficking of individuals.

“How could the spirit of the dead be reached and engaged when it is so trapped? Can the spirit be able to escape its ‘plastic prison’ and join the ancestors, or remain locked in captivity?” asks Brian Mukalazi in the Daily Monitor newspaper, describing how the burial of Covid-19 victims in a ‘scientific’ way angered the communities and led them to defying the burial guidelines by secretly exhuming the bodies to conduct decent burials. Communities such as the Budaka in eastern Uganda, the Buikwe, and the Palissa who resorted to this claimed they needed to ensure decent burials for their departed kin since their spirits had started disturbing their living relatives and some community members.

 

Conclusion

It is clear from the above that the suffering stemming from the loss of a loved one can be compounded by the lack of proper treatment of the deceased, in this case by the absence of proper burial rituals. However, these emotional impacts of injustices linked to bereavement processes on those close to the deceased and their communities are not yet sufficiently understood. It is crucial to address the psychosocial needs of those that lost loved ones to the pandemic. To prevent recurrence, and to help the bereaved find closure, academic research should focus more deliberately on cultural and psychological needs that arise during bereavement processes.

 

[1] McCarthy, J. R., Evans, R., Bowlby, S., & Wouango, J. (2020). Making sense of family deaths in urban Senegal: Diversities, contexts, and comparisons. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying, 82(2), 230-260.

[2] Baloyi, L., & Makobe-Rabothata, M. (2014). The African conception of death: A cultural implication.

[3] Umoh, D. S. (2012). Death is not natural: The African story.

[4] Haram, L. (2021). Bodily grief work meets Christian interiority: The Meru case. Death studies, 45(1), 51-60.

[5] Vokes, R. (2018). Before the call: Mobile phones, exchange relations, and social change in south-western Uganda. Ethnos, 83(2), 274-290.

[6] Wayland, E. J. (1931). Preliminary studies of the tribes of Karamoja. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 61, 187-230.

[7] Kembel, A. S. (2015). When the Dead Are Not Silent: The Investigation of Cultural Perspectives Concerning Improper Burials in Northern Uganda.

[8] As a theoretical perspective, Ubuntu is expressed in many languages in African communities but with the same meaning (Mugumbate and Chereni, 2020). Ubuntu caring solidarity translates to Uganda’s context through a saying which literally means “today it’s me, tomorrow someone else”.

[9] Lee, R., & Vaughan, M. (2008). Death and dying in the history of Africa since 1800. The Journal of African History, 49(3), 341-359.

[10] Lubega, M., Nakamya, C. S., Namugumya, E., & Najjemba, J. (2022). The effect of COVID-19 public health guidelines on the funeral traditions and burial rituals among the Baganda, a tribe in Central Uganda. PAMJ-One Health, 7(7).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Henry Okidi Okoth holds a MA Development Studies degree from the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Currently, he is a researcher and consultant with Collaborative Social Change. His research interests are death and bereavement studies from a decolonial perspective, marginalization and poverty, gender, conflict, and human rights.

 

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From Awareness to Action: World Heritage in Young Hands

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At a workshop in Bulange, Uganda, held in August 2021 the focus was on how to engage youth in protecting, preserving, and promoting World Heritage. The goal was to sensitise youth about heritage through learning from past legacies, understanding what elders live with today, and what they will pass on to the future generations. With a focus on the UNESCO World Heritage Kasubi Tombs site (No.1022), this workshop was important because cultural and natural heritage are both invaluable sources for life and inspiration, that require actionable innovations to transmit heritage knowledge, create heritage-related employment, and preserve the moral development of societies, while promoting young people’s cultural and intellectual development in a globalised world. In this blog, I make the case for increasing grassroots funding for youth-led activities to protect and preserve heritage, as well as to integrate information computing technology (ICT) to help disseminate heritage knowledge globally in a variety of digital formats.

Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi (Uganda) © UNESCO

What is World Heritage?

World heritage includes places as diverse and unique as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador, the Taj Mahal in India, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Grand Canyon in the USA, or the Kasubi Tombs in Uganda.[i] They are designated as places that are of outstanding universal value to humanity, and as such have been inscribed in the World Heritage List. Nevertheless, these sites face major problems, such as pollution, earthquakes, and other natural disasters, poaching, armed conflict and war, uncontrolled urbanisation, and unchecked tourist development. Young people, as the future generation, still lack knowledge to contribute to the sustainability of heritage in all forms. But they are the ones who can innovate, through local activities, that can offer potential solutions to protect, preserve, and promote Heritage around them. Moreover, they are also skilled at using new digital communications tools, which, if used effectively, can help in implementing concrete solutions to protect these sites.

As a UNESCO initiative, developed in 1998, the World Heritage in Young Hands Educational Resource Kit, for secondary school teachers, advances heritage sensitisation in schools as one approach towards raising awareness among youth.[ii] This has contributed to the transnational conception of heritage protection, preservation, and promotion. While providing a global tool for schools, those not enrolled are, however, excluded from various forms of engagement in preserving local, national, and world heritage. It is important to equally involve out-of-school youth in the protection of our common cultural as well as natural heritage through increasing youth-led initiatives to protect, preserve, and promote heritage.

Varying Forms of World Heritages

The UNESCO Convention concerning the protection of the World cultural and Natural Heritage[iii], describes heritage in varying forms – the cultural and natural heritage. These two, furthermore vary in the forms of tangible and intangible aspects. Tangible cultural heritage is movable and immovable. Immovables include archaeological sites, architectural works, historical centres, monuments, cultural landscapes, historical parks, and botanical gardens as well as sites of industrial archaeology. Movable tangible heritage on the other hand, includes museum collections, libraries, and archives. Examples of intangible cultural heritage include music, dance, literature, theatre, oral traditions, traditional performances, social practices, traditional know-how, crafts, cultural spaces, and religious ceremonies and for natural heritage. Examples of tangible and immovable heritage are natural and maritime parks of ecological interests, geological and physical formations, and landscapes of outstanding natural beauty.

Protect, Preserve, and Promote

In a UNESCO-funded workshop on “Empowering Ugandan Youth through Culture and Heritage” held in Bulange, Uganda, in August 2021, 35 cultural leaders discussed the role of youth in protecting, conserving, and promoting the Kasubi Tombs built in 1882 (UNESCO’s World Heritage Site No. 1022). Utilising the World Heritage in Young Hands Educational Resource Kit, they concluded that:

  • There is a risk that future generations no longer know much about cultural heritage preservation. If youth are not actively engaged in protecting and promoting heritage sites, they will sooner or later be littered with hotels, stadiums, and arcades that exploit the touristic potential of cultural sites.
  • We need to preserve heritage sites as an expression of humanistic values that ancestors created with the intention of telescoping them to the future, allowing generations to interpret their symbolic meaning, and investigate past customs of human interaction globally.
  • Heritage may not immediately appeal to younger generations. Still, knowledge gaps ought to be addressed, and misconceptions dispelled as an inclusive transition to promote an authentic heritage value system among youth.

The Youth Have Their Say

Workshop participants suggested that a regional transnational governance framework under UNESCO be supported, one that would be designed to promote a grassroots-based system driven by all categories of young people to enable them to act beyond awareness in support of promoting heritage. There could be a potential intra-regional role for the African Union in such an initiative.

While alternatives for young people to protect, preserve, and promote tangible heritage sites were made by speakers, it was also suggested that outreach initiatives such as using cartoons to mobilise youngsters in support of World Heritage protection and promotion be used. In addition, it was proposed that families engage young people in extra-curricular events such as excursions to nearby heritage places of interest, youth camps, cultural festivals, and exhibitions, as well as participate in role play activities to recreate traditional social events, such as processions, ceremonies, youth camps and festivals, using tradition to enable, integrate, and promote youth development for continued World Heritage preservation for future generations.

The way forward

Participants recommended various ways to move from sensitisation to action to protect, preserve, and promote world heritage from the perspective of youth engagement. Firstly, nation states should give responsibility for overseeing the security needs of cultural sites to youth through integrating them more into heritage management. While teaching based on the World Heritage kit by practitioners should include more about the provision of security as an essential factor for youth to innovate in relation to heritage related projects, global leaders should also ensure adequate budgets for heritage funds for youth to tap into and protect world heritage.

Moreover, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre should support custodians of heritage sites in transforming the intangible value of heritage sites into written descriptions. In addition, youth learning centres, or interpretive centres, should be constructed by nation states at bigger sites to facilitate the preservation of heritage. Lastly, there is an urgent need for better use of ICT and social media by Ministries of Culture among member states of UNESCO. This will facilitate the digitalisation of knowledge dissemination on heritage across the world, along with inviting youth to engage in diverse and creative ways for promotion, protection, and preservation of world heritage for the future generations.

 

[i] Definition of World Heritage by UNESCO. (see https://whc.unesco.org/en/faq/19/  retrieved on 11 November 2021)

[ii] UNESCO, World Heritage in Young Hands Educational Resource Kit for secondary school teachers (1998). The resource kit complement other initiatives including World Heritage Youth Forums, World Heritage Adventures cartoon series, Training seminars for educators on the use of the resource Kit, On-site skills-development courses for young people, workshops & conferences, and the World Heritage Volunteers initiative.

[iii] Varying Forms of Heritage are described in the UNESCO Convention concerning the protection of the World cultural and Natural Heritage (1972) see https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/. Retrieved on 06/12.2021

   

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Umar Kabanda holds a PhD and a master’s degree in Governance and Regional Integration, as well as a Post Graduate Diploma in Human Rights and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Currently he is the Managing Director of Kalube consults limited and a Policy leader Fellow with the School of Transnational Governance in the European University Institute in Italy.  

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Reporting or turning a blind eye? Police integrity in Uganda by Wil Hout and Natascha Wagner

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Imagine that you are a police officer and witness a close colleague accepting a bribe. Would you report this behaviour or turn a blind eye to it? 600 police officers in Uganda answered similar questions relating to a variety of cases of undesirable police conduct. A series of recent publications by Dr Natascha Wagner and Professor Wil Hout, with ISS alumna Dr Rose Namara, shows that officers who participated in an accountability project were influenced positively in their attitudes towards desirable and undesirable police behaviour.

The arrest of Ugandan musician, businessman and opposition politician Bobi Wine in August 2018 caused world-wide attention to the brutal behaviour of the Ugandan police force. This crackdown on a popular figure in the country added to the already bad reputation of Uganda’s police, which is commonly seen as violent and corrupt.

Democratic theory sees the police, next to the army, as the ‘strong arm’ of the state. These institutions are faced with a ‘paradox of power’: they possess important coercive tools that should be used to protect the state and its citizens, but could also be employed to attack those whom they should protect. For this reason, accountability mechanisms are created to ensure that police behaviour respects the principles of the rule of law. Countries with a robust rule of law mechanism, such as The Netherlands, subject the police to strict political and legal oversight. Police officers who ‘cross the line’ and engage in unacceptable behaviour will likely be punished, although recent reports on the code of silence in the police force in The Hague suggest that this may not always be self-evident.

Similar mechanisms do not apply to the same extent to Uganda, which is widely seen as an imperfect democracy, with many traits of so-called ‘competitive authoritarianism’. The country holds regular elections, but political liberties are seriously impeded by the rulers of the country. President Yoweri Museveni’s regime, which has ruled Uganda since the removal of Obote in 1986, regularly uses the police force to repress oppositional forces that may threaten its hold to power. The recent setup of a Field Force Unit for handling riots and demonstrations, according to some observers, is one example of the militarisation the Ugandan police, and could represent a further step to using the police for regime support.

In this seemingly hostile context, the Police Accountability and Reform Project was implemented by the Ugandese NGO HURINET with the financial help of the Dutch Embassy in Kampala. The project aimed to improve relations between civil society, the media and the police by organising dialogues, and inform the public about the work of the police. These activities were meant to strengthen police accountability mechanisms.

The evaluation department of The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs brought in a team from ISS to assess, among others, the police accountability project. The ministry was interested to see to what extent its ‘good governance’ policies in various countries had been effective. Our aim in relation to the project on police accountability was to estimate whether it impacted the attitudes of Ugandan police officers. We concluded that the project in all likelihood contributed positively to the attitudes of police officers regarding desirable and undesirable police activities.

Our research project consisted of different activities. One important element was a survey among a large group of police officers, drawn from districts across Uganda, with the help of a dozen cases of police behaviour. Based on earlier research on police integrity, we let police officers evaluate a variety of cases (or ‘vignettes’), among others relating to police officers who take bribes, steal from a burglary site, and refuse to record a complaint about torture by one of the officer’s colleagues, and, to a District Police Commander who orders a violent response to a demonstration, leaving 20 people dead. Police officers who participated in the project appeared on average much more critical about the misbehaviour depicted in the cases, while they were also more likely to report a colleague for misbehaving. They were more inclined to see the behaviour as a violation of official policy and were more supportive of disciplinary action against misbehaving colleagues.

Interviews with 23 police officers, selected from the higher ranks, supported the findings from the survey. Overall, officers who participated in the accountability project had clearer ideas about human rights norms, the proper treatment of arrestees and relations with the community. The responses of those police officers were credible signs of the norm-setting impact of the accountability project.

Overall, our findings show that it pays off to engage police officers in discussions about acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour, even in a difficult environment such as Uganda. Obviously, the spreading of norms about police behaviour is just one element in creating a better functioning police apparatus. A shift in attitudes does not necessarily represent a reversal of behaviour, since the latter is influenced by many factors other than attitudes. The accountability project in Uganda demonstrated the usefulness of working with the police, although longer-term collaboration may be necessary for achieving permanent results. This may be an important lesson for improving police operations in other countries where accountability and rule of law are a concern.

Publications:
Wil Hout, Ria Brouwers, Jonathan Fisher, Rose Namara, Lydeke Schakel and Natascha Wagner (2016) Policy Review Good Governance: Uganda Country Study, Report for the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, available at http://hdl.handle.net/1765/102964. This report contains the vignettes that were used in the survey among police officers.
Natascha Wagner and Wil Hout (2019) ‘Police Integrity and the Perceived Effectiveness of Policing: Evidence from a Survey among Ugandan Police Officers’, in Sanja Kutnjak Ivković and M.R. Haberfeld (eds) Exploring Police Integrity: Novel Approaches to Police Integrity Theory and Methodology, New York: Springer, pp. 165-191, available at http://hdl.handle.net/1765/115822.
Natascha Wagner, Wil Hout and Rose Namara (2020, forthcoming) ‘Improving Police Integrity in Uganda: Impact Assessment of the Police Accountability and Reform Project’, Review of Development Economics, available at http://hdl.handle.net/1765/121705.
Wil Hout, Natascha Wagner and Rose Namara (2020, forthcoming) ‘Holding Ugandan Police to Account: Case study of the Police Accountability and Reform Project’, in Sylvia Bergh, Sony Pellissery and Christina Sathyamala (eds) The State of Accountability in the Global South: Challenges and Responses, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, available at http://hdl.handle.net/1765/115862.

_DSC4072-3.jpgAbout the authors:

Wil Hout is Professor of Governance and International Political Economy at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. His research interests relate to international political economy, regionalism, development policies and issues of governance and development.

natascha.JPG

 

Natascha Wagner is associate professor of Development Economics at the ISS. Her research interests lie in international economics, development, health and education. She has participated in various impact evaluation projects and large scale data collections in Africa and Asia ranging from public health to good governance and sustainable development.

Why history matters to understand rebellion: the Rwenzururu Movement in Uganda by Martin Doornbos

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About the author:
pasfotoMartin Doornbos is a retired professor of the ISS, and this post is based on his new book The Rwenzururu Movement in Uganda: Struggling for Recognition, published by Routledge in 2017.

 

A few years ago, the self- styled kingship of the Rwenzururu movement in Uganda was recognized by the government. When in 2016 armed clashes between the Rwenzururu king’s bodyguard and a patrol of the Uganda army erupted, the new king was held responsible and he is currently being kept under house arrest. Fascinated by this movement that few people outside Uganda know about, I had set out to explore and write about the origins and evolution of this movement.

The Rwenzururu movement was a case of sub-nationalism emerging in the early 1960s and seeking liberation for the Bakonzo and Baamba people from Batoro overrule, all of these representing ethnic groups in Western Uganda. It soon gave rise to a highly complex and in some respects spectacular situation which would endure for decades to come.

The Rwenzururu movement originated on and around the Mountains of the Moon, on the borders between Uganda and Congo (DRC). At the establishment of British rule in the early 20th century, Bakonzo and Baamba had been included into Toro Kingdom, which became a district within the Ugandan colonial set-up together with three other (neo-traditionalized) kingdoms. The Bakonzo and Baamba constituted sizeable minorities (just under 40%) in this district that was dominated by the Batoro. Throughout the colonial period Bakonzo and Baamba had been treated as second-class citizens by the dominant strata of Batoro within Toro kingdom. They lacked equitable representation and were seriously neglected in terms of educational opportunities and elementary government services.

Unsurprisingly, as independence approached and a possibility of redrawing of district boundaries seemed in reach, the two groups joined hands in a movement of protest, Rwenzururu, that first sought recognition of equal status within Toro. When this was refused they demanded a separate district. At the micro level at that time, a separate district was perceived almost like attaining independence. As these demands received negative and rather high-handed responses from the Toro district government and the central Uganda government, protest soon gained momentum, and in subsequent years led to numerous violent encounters with Batoro militias and Uganda government troops.

One wing of the movement took the more radical step to secede from Uganda and set up its own, rudimentary government. Its leader, Isaya Mukirane, first became President, later King of Rwenzururu. Upon his death in 1966, his young son Charles Wesley Mumbere was nominated to succeed him. The other wing of the movement continued to struggle, under considerable hardship and harassment from both Ugandan army and police forces and from Rwenzururu militias, for equal recognition within the Uganda political framework by way of a separate district.

In 1967, the Uganda government of Milton Obote abolished the (neo-)traditional kingdoms within Uganda, thus removing the Toro kingship which had been one of the sources of discontent and envy to Rwenzururians. The next government, that of Idi Amin, resolved another key source of frustration by granting the Baamba and Bakonzo a separate district each. Then, after the toppling of the Idi Amin regime and the (controversial) return of Obote as president in the 1980s, the secessionist Rwenzururu kingdom, now with Mukirane’s son Charles Wesley as its leader, showed itself responsive to overtures for reconciliation and agreed to a settlement. The deal involved the ceremonial laying down of arms by Rwenzururian forces and the resignation of Charles Wesley as ‘king’, in return for promises of development funds for social welfare and education. For the ex-king himself there were material incentives including a bus, a shop, and a government scholarship for study abroad, which was to materialize in the United States.

The Rwenzururu saga continued, however, for mainly two reasons. One, not all secessionist Rwenzururians were supportive of the idea of reconciliation and some who had initially been in favour slipped back into armed resistance, lured by larger profits and powers offered in an environment ideally suited for contraband and guerrilla activities. Second, Uganda in 1986 once again saw a change of regime with Yoweri Museveni taking over. Having its power base in the National Resistance Army, his new government in due course felt it had to accommodate pressures from Buganda(the largest of the neo-traditional kingdoms incorporated within Uganda) pleading for restoration of its kingship. As it is legally difficult to restore a single kingship where all had been ‘banned’, parliament in 1993 passed a ‘un-banning’ order allowing the restoration of ‘cultural leaders’, provided ‘the people so wish’. In emulation of the restoration of Toro’s kingship and out of a strong wish to be at par with that, however, Rwenzururians claimed that their own kingship, albeit a novel institution, should also be restored. Thus a popular movement swell to have Rwenzururu’s ex-king, Charles Wesley, return from the United States where he still lived and be recognized by Museveni’s government. He did indeed come for a visit in 1998, but this was not immediately followed by official recognition. Charles Wesley at that time preferred to return to his job in the United States.

But Rwenzururu involved much more than the kingship issue. Many or most other Bakonzo and Baamba, living in the more accessible plains and on the lower mountain spurs, were equally strongly engaged in ‘Rwenzururu’ without subscribing to the idea of secession or the newly invented royalty. Associating Rwenzururu mainly with the secessionist wing and its (indeed spectacular) history amounts to a narrowing of perspective and leaves underexposed the struggles fought at another level, and with altogether different objectives, by a majority of Bakonzo (and Baamba) for whom secession was no realistic option or target.

More broadly, looking back at the conditions in the region at the time the Rwenzururu movement emerged, there can be little doubt that these were then just ‘ripe’ for a rebellion to break out and would have spurred that in one way or the other, just like they did elsewhere in Uganda at the time – in Sebei, Ankole, and Kigezi, in particular. Such social dynamics are of crucial importance in understanding why a protest movement emerges and what course it may take. In the case of Rwenzururu, it is interesting to note that decisions made about the future shape of ethnic relations and ethnic subordination at the time of the establishment of colonial rule in Uganda, would now, more than a century later, backfire and lead to renewed ethnically inspired violence between the groups concerned and even involving the central government.