Uganda

By the end of 2009, around 1.4 million people – 80% of Uganda's displaced population – had moved from camps to transit sites or back home, suggesting growing confidence in the durability of peace in the north. But according to the UN, humanitarian gains since 2006 are in danger of unravelling in the absence of recovery and development programmes. A comprehensive recovery plan for the north was recently launched by the Government of Uganda and, with support from international donors, will be implemented over the next five years.  

The north-eastern region of Karamoja has also experienced cycles of violence and instability over the years. While organised cattle raids, mainly between different ethnic groups, have always been regarded as a legitimate way of re-stocking, recent years have seen an increase in theft as a criminal act rather than condoned by a particular community. The easy availability of small arms and some heavy handed disarmament attempts by the Ugandan army have aggravated existing insecurity.

The country faces many challenges as its tentative transition to democracy continues. The human rights situation has also improved, though state security forces are still accused of abuses and attacks on political freedom.

A lack of policing in some parts of the country, and the high number of small arms and light weapons in circulation means that insecurity remains a problem for many Ugandans, and there are concerns that instability in neighbouring countries could spill across the border.

Relative peace has been restored and democratic reform introduced since Yoweri Museveni became president in 1986, but only after a bitter civil war in the north of the country against the Lord's Resistance Army, that killed tens of thousands of people and drove two million from their homes. The LRA also forcibly recruited an estimated 20,000 child soldiers, some of them as young as eight.

Its leader Joseph Kony, claims to have special powers and to be fighting to defend the Ten Commandments. Yet he also articulated a range of northern grievances, mainly centring on marginalisation of the Acholi people from political and economic power.

The LRA and the government signed an initial ceasefire in 2006, made permanent in February 2008. It has held within Uganda, but a comprehensive peace deal is still to be finalised and the LRA has become active in neighbouring countries.