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ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the urban outcomes of protracted humanitarian intervention in Gulu town, Northern Uganda. Using the concept of humanitarian urbanism, we demonstrate how intensive external donor-aid has shaped urbanization in the capital of Northern Uganda. The starting point for our analysis is the recent process of withdrawal of humanitarian NGOs and the shifts from humanitarian to development interventions. This shift was characterized by a special focus on urban development, coordinated by the Ugandan state while largely donor supported. We argue that this shift, instead of introducing an urban involvement of aid agencies in Gulu town, actually reveals a protracted continuum of aid agencies’ interventions in Gulu’s urbanity. The current withdrawal of humanitarian organizations in fact makes the long-term effects of these interventions especially visible. As such, it offers an interesting starting point to investigate processes of humanitarian urbanism and its profound impacts on the urban material, socio-economic and political landscapes. This paper demonstrates how aid agencies, since the armed conflict in Northern Uganda, have been key actors in shaping different dimensions of urban governance. Three case-studies are presented, which variously focus upon the urban educational sector, Gulu’s physical urban planning, and Gulu’s cultural institution. They reveal how today’s reconfigurations of the urban aid-landscape have redrawn the complex relations between urban inhabitants, aid agencies, and the Ugandan state.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Interview with NGO employee (Gulu, August 2016).
2 Branch, “The Violence of Peace”; Alix-Garcia et al., “The Landscape of Conflict.”
3 Sande Lie, “From Humanitarian Action.”
4 A government coordinated framework through which development support is channelled to northern Uganda. Its first phase ran from 2008 to 2012, its second phase from 2012 to 2015, its third phase was initiated in 2015 to run until 2019.
5 Britain, Denmark, the EU, Germany, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden suspended their budget support for PRDP (Sande Lie, “From Humanitarian Action”; interview communication staff of NGO forum, Gulu, July 2015).
6 Interview with and supporting documents from the Director NGO forum (August 2016).
7 Potvin, “Humanitarian Urbanism,” 3.
8 Resnick, “Urban Governance.”
9 Björkdahl and Buckeley-Zitsel, “Spatializing Peace and Conflict”; Kirsch and Flint, “Reconstructing Conflict”; Smirl, Spaces of Aid.
10 Apthorpe, “Postcards from Aidland.”
11 Mosse, Adventures in Aidland; Fechter and Hindman, Inside the Everyday lives.
12 Harrison, “Beyond the Looking Glass.”
13 Smirl, Spaces of Aid.
14 Clouette and Wise, Forms of Aid.
15 See for example: Büscher and Vlassenroot, “Humanitarian Presence and Urban Development”; Branch, “Gulu Town in War”; Alix-Garcia et al. “The Landscape of Conflict.”
16 Lucchi, “Between War and Peace”; Grünewald, “Aid in a City at War.”
17 Sassen, “When the City Itself.”
18 See for example Stepputat and van Voorst, “Cities on the Agenda.”
19 Myers, African Cities.
20 See: http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/cities/ (accessed November 12, 2017); and https://unhabitat.org/new-urban-agenda-adopted-at-habitat-iii/ (accessed November 12, 2017).
21 Lucchi, “Between War and Peace”; Potvin, “Humanitarian Urbanism.”
22 Büscher and Vlassenroot, “Humanitarian Presence and Urban Development.”
23 Potvin, “Humanitarian Urbanism,” 3.
24 Potvin, “Humanitarian Urbanism,” XX.
25 Branch, “Against Humanitarian Impunity”; Dolan, “Understanding War and Its Continuation.”
26 Woodburn, “IDPs and the Reconstruction”; Branch, “Humanitarianism, Violence, and the Camp”; Mergelsberg, “The Displaced Family.”
27 Potvin, “Humanitarian Urbanism.” Potvin explicitly focuses on the production of the urban space through humanitarian action beyond the camp realities. She argues that while indeed the camp remains the spatial embodiment ‘par excellence’ of humanitarian action and the prototypical form of humanitarian spatial production, we may not overlook the ‘vast (unbounded) landscapes that are increasingly shaped and reshaped by the variegated spatial practices of humanitarianism’ (6).
28 Büscher and Vlassenroot, “Humanitarian Presence and Urban Development.”
29 Branch, “Gulu Town in War”; Nibbe, “The Effects of a Narrative.”
30 Douma and Van der Haar, “Service Delivery in Post-conflict Contexts.”
31 Potvin, “Humanitarian Urbanism.”
32 Branch, Displacing Human Rights.
33 Interview, communication staff, NGO forum (Gulu, April 2015).
34 The notions of ‘hardware’ and ‘software’ are standard vocabulary in the humanitarian and development discourse (De Sardan, Anthropology and Development).
35 Annan et al., “From Rebel to Returnee.”
36 Interview, representative, Acholi Education Initiative (Gulu, April 2015).
37 Interview, NGO employee (Gulu, Januari 2014).
38 Interview, ‘mother’ of SOS Childrens Village (Gulu, April 2015).
39 Interview, school director primary school (Gulu, April 2015); Interview representative Acholi Education Initiative (Gulu, April 2015).
40 Büscher, “Conflict, State Failure and Urban Transformation.”
41 Potvin, “Humanitarian Urbanism.”
42 Interview staff Invisible Children (Gulu, April 2015).
43 The ‘end of’ Invisible Children was a direct outcome of its controversial role in politics and the controversy around its ‘Kony 2012’ action. (see: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/16/invisible-children-closing_n_6329990.html, accessed October 6, 2017).
44 Interview, director, Sr. Samuel Baker school (Gulu, April 2015).
45 Focus group discussion, students from St. Josephs College (Gulu, April 2015).
46 Focus group discussion, teachers from St. Josephs College (Gulu, April 2015).
47 Interview, representative, Acholi Education Initiative (Gulu, April 2015).
48 Focus group discussion, teachers, Sr. Samuel Baker school (Gulu, April 2015); interview communication staff NGO forum (Gulu, April 2015).
49 Focus group discussion, teachers, St. Josephs College (Gulu, April 2015).
50 Universal Secondary Education policy, introduced in 2006 in Uganda to achieve equal access to secondary education.
51 Focus group discussion, teachers, St. Josephs College (Gulu, April 2015).
52 Focus group discussion, teachers, St. Josephs College (Gulu, April 2015); focus group discussion, students from St. Josephs College (Gulu, April 2015).
53 Branch, “Gulu Town in War.”
54 Smirl, Spaces of Aid.
55 Branch, “From Camp to Slum.”
56 Branch, “Gulu Town in War”; Branch, “The Violence of Peace.”
57 Büscher and Vlassenroot, “Humanitarian Presence and Urban Development”; Smirl, Spaces of Aid.
58 Branch, “The Violence of Peace.”
59 Interview, urban engineer, Gulu Municipality (Gulu, January 2014) interview municipal Mayor (Gulu, January 2014).
60 Interview, local NGO staff member (Gulu, January 2014).
61 Interview, religious leader (Gulu, December 2017).
62 Interview, senior planner, Municipal Council (Gulu, April 2016); see also Museveni assures Gulu on city status: http://www.chimpreports.com/museveni-assures-gulu-on-city-status/ (accessed November 17, 2017).
63 Interview, ex-municipal planning staff (Gulu, January 2014).
64 Managing rapid urbanization can help Uganda achieve sustainable and inclusive growth: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/03/03/managing-rapid-urbanization-can-help-uganda-achieve-sustainable-and-inclusive-growth (accessed November 17, 2017).
65 UNDP Procurement Notices: http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=8528 (accessed August 14, 2017).
66 See the ‘Gulu master plan’ on this website: http://www.idgarchitects.com.au/design-portfolio/gulu-masterplan/ (accessed August 14, 2017).
67 Interview, Gulu-based LSA Academic (Gulu, April 2015); interview, priest of Catholic church (Gulu, Januari 2014).
68 Interview, local academic researcher (Gulu, April 2015); interview, local academic researcher, (Gulu, December 2017).
69 Branch, “Gulu Town in War”; Nibbe “The Effects of a Narrative.”
70 The notion of ‘traditional’ is contested in this context, as transitional rituals performed with donor support have been referred to as an ‘invention of tradition’ (Allen, “The International Criminal Court”).
71 Allen, “The International Criminal Court”; Dolan, Social Torture; Branch, Displacing Human Rights.
72 Komujuni and Büscher, “In Search for Chiefly Authority”; Paine, “A Re-invention of Traditional Authority.”
73 This process has been described in detail by Paine, “A Re-invention of Traditional Authority.” Using funding from the Belgium government, ACORD (Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development) identified, anointed and re-instated as many as 54 Acholi chiefs, each representing their ‘chiefdom’ including one or several clans, often scattered over different territories within Acholiland (Komujuni and Büscher, “In Search for Chiefly Authority,” 15).
74 Komujuni and Büscher, “In Search for Chiefly Authority.”
75 Chiefdoms, at the time of writing there are 54 recognized under KKA.
76 Komujuni and Büscher, “In Search for Chiefly Authority.”
77 Interview, KKA staff member (Gulu, December 2017).
78 Interview, KKA staff member (Gulu, December 2017).
79 Paine, “A Re-invention of Traditional Authority.”
80 Paine, “A Re-invention of Traditional Authority.” Interview, prime minister, Pagea chiefdom (Gulu, December 2017).
81 Paine, “A Re-invention of Traditional Authority.”
82 Komujuni and Büscher, “In Search for Chiefly Authority”
83 Focus group discussion, elders, Pagea chiefdom (Gulu, December 2017).
84 Focus group discussion, elders, Omoro chiefdom (Gulu, December 2017).
85 In 2014 a series of corruption scandals caused a sudden disengagement from international NGOs and embassies.
86 Interview, Priest, Catholic Church (Gulu, January 2014).
87 Sande Lie, “From Humanitarian Action.”
88 For more details, see Komujuni and Büscher, “In Search for Chiefly Authority.”
89 Interview, staff member KKA (Gulu, December 2017).
90 Fieldwork observations (Gulu, December 2017).
91 Komujuni and Büscher, “In Search for Chiefly Authority.”
92 Interview, KKA staff (Gulu, December 2017).
93 Interview, spokesperson, Pagea chiefdom (Gulu, December 2017).