On Tuesday I attended a Land Platform meeting in Kotido, which is in the heart of the Karamoja region in the North East of Uganda, bordering onto Kenya. It is a hot, dry, remote area known as one of the poorest in Uganda. It is a 500km drive from Kampala, which took a full day. We went via Lira so 300km on tarmac roads and 200km on murram.
We went through spectacular mountain scenery in Abim county.
Then onto the flat lands around Kotido.
You can just see the man in traditional dress carrying a long stick in the corner of the picture. Traditionally the Karamojong carry long spears and wear a feather in their headress. I saw several of these traditional headdresses and one person with a spear.
The Karamojong are known throughout Uganda for their love of cattle. They are pastoralists who travel around in search of grazing. We travelled in the rainy season, and if fact arrived during a heavy storm, so the area around Kotido was quite green. But there are long dry periods, especially when the rains arrive late, when both food and grazing are scarce. The region experienced a famine earlier this year and there were reports in the Ugandan papers of agencies distributing food and numbers dying from hunger.
As well as the problems caused by the seasons and rainfall, or lack of it, the Karamoja region is rich in minerals including gold, marble, limestone and iron ore. This should be a cause for celebration with the population being lifted out of poverty from the proceeds of the mineral wealth under their feet. However, it's not that simple. The land is mostly communal land with a tribal group using their land for their homes and grazing. Shared resources such as streams and water holes are used communally between tribal groups by negotiation and agreement.
Exploration licences to determine the quantity and quality of the minerals have been granted to large scale mining groups with little consultation with the local population who are often unaware of what is happening. Levels of literacy are low so posting a notice, especially in English, is unlikely to elicit a response. If an economic level of mineral wealth is found who gets the licence to mine it? Probably not the local people who may have been mining the area on a small scale for years to provide some income for their families.
By law 3% of the royalties from mineral extraction is passed to the land owner. Firstly 3% is a depressingly low figure. Secondly with no obvious land owner and no written title to the land to prove ownership very often the people who rely on the land for their livelihood are left out of the distribution.
Overall an eye opening conference. We had speakers giving the background to the area and the issues, including those described above, a speaker describing the situation across the border in the Turkana Region of Kenya and a representative from a mining consortium working hand in hand with an international NGO to try and give a fairer share to the local people.
The local people must have wondered whatever was happening! 90 people descending on a small town smaller than Poppleton, taking over every hotel room in the place and driving around in their big 4*4 NGO branded vehicles. At least we must have brought some money into the town for food, drink and accommodation. And we gave the local representatives and NGO workers a chance to participate in a conference they would normally have to travel to Lira or Kampala to attend, so hopefully we did some good.
