Conflict sensitive engagement for community security

Saferworld’s Uganda team have been involved in a number of initiatives involving conflict sensitive development. One recent initiative was part of the International Day of Peace in September 2013, when Saferworld sponsored a weapons destruction exercise in Moroto, Karamoja, north-eastern Uganda.

In Uganda during 2013, Saferworld has been involved in a number of initiatives to increase conflict-sensitive approaches to development, to try to ensure that these will improve community security. Northern Uganda in particular is still vulnerable to the legacy of the 20-year war between the Ugandan Government and the Lord’s Resistance Army, with latent tensions periodically erupting into overt and localised violence.

One recent initiative was part of International Day of Peace in September 2013, when Saferworld sponsored a weapons destruction exercise in Moroto, Karamoja, north-eastern Uganda. Forty sub-machine guns and 500 rounds of ammunition recovered from Karimojong cattle rustlers were set alight in a symbolic ceremony hosted by government officials and attended by affected communities and civil society organisations.

Saferworld has supported a rights-based and conflict sensitive approach to the peaceful disarmament and destruction of weapons in the Karamoja region, where weapons proliferation alongside cross-border and inter-tribal cattle raids are still undermining community security. The disarmament of many Karimojong communities has led to reported insecurity as they have become vulnerable to attacks by pastoralists who are still armed in neighbouring South Sudan and Kenya. The invitation to Saferworld from the National Focal Point on Small Arms (part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) to support the exercise, as well as the participation of Kenyan Turkana and Karamoja pastoralist communities, represents a valuable commitment by the authorities and relevant leaders to engage in a dialogue with civil society to ensure that small arms control contributes to a broader peacebuilding process.

­­­This event was part of Saferworld’s wider engagement on conflict issues in the region. In September 2013, in Kampala, Saferworld, as part of the Advisory Consortium on Conflict Sensitivity, launched a report on conflict analysis to support efforts to promote conflict sensitive approaches to recovery. The report was received by 155 guests, including government officials, representatives of local and international civil society, development partners, and media.

Key findings from the report, which is available here, indicate the level of engagement required by local, national, and international actors. Important conflict drivers affecting communities include competition over land and resources, youth exclusion, gender conflicts and inadequate transitional justice. These conflict drivers could jeopardize the positive recovery efforts in the region, with the research revealing that many communities in northern Uganda remain in a state of underlying conflict, burdened by inadequately addressed war legacies and deep-seated grievances against government institutions. Marginalisation of communities in the north is evident by the comparatively higher levels of poverty and socio-economic and political exclusion, giving the conflict drivers identified in the report fertile ground to fester. The report notes that Northern Uganda still requires sustained post-conflict development interventions to attain parity with the rest of the country, and that all interventions must be conflict sensitised in order to effectively address the conflict drivers identified, and thus increasing peacebuilding impacts.

Find out more about our work in Uganda.

Find out more about our work on conflict sensitivity.