Karamoja with the Rest of 'the Rest of Uganda'

The setting of abstract impossible goals turns the means by which these goals are to be achieved into ends (Illich 1973: 40). In a paper on development interventions in Karamoja, presented at a large conference on African pastoralism, the author draws attention to the tendency of focusing on 'technical' targets, defined in abstract, with little connection to the production systems and the societies of producers on the ground. Examples of this kind of 'system-blind' approach discussed in the paper include the prevention of bush burning in order to fight soil erosion, the construction of dams and valley-tanks in order to increase production, as well as initiatives for the control of animal disease, and for disarmament. In each case, the author examines the long-term effects of interventions showing how, once integrated into the actual (but ignored) context of production and social dynamics on the ground, the 'solution' in principle resulted in even bigger problems in practice. System-blind cessation of burning lowered the nutritional value of dry-season grazing, while favouring bush encroachment and the spreading of ticks and tsetse flies. System-blind water development resulted in large-scale soil erosion and the dramatic disappearance of perennial grasses, as well as social unrest as the stocking rates supported by the expansion of accessible dry-season rangelands at the periphery of Karamoja became unsustainable for the (unexpanded) central belt during the wet season. System-blind control of epizootics triggered even more unsustainable herd growth rates (as well as top-down destocking measures unmatched by existing marketing infrastructure). With droughts, crops failed as expected, but now in the areas where the annual grasses had replaced the perennials, exceptionally large stock numbers were left without fodder. As the introduction of dysfunctional relationships in the production and livelihood systems at the regional level triggered abnormal outbursts of violence, system-blind law-enforcement measures were focusing on disarmament and punishment, exacerbating and expanding, rather than reducing, the reasons that had triggered the increase in violence in the first place. That paper was published almost forty years ago (Baker 1975). In fact, Baker writes about development measures pursued in Uganda under the British administration including water development in Karamoja with dams and valley-tanks, a modernization idea from 1938, (1) the successful fight against the East Coast Fever, 'the great drought of the early 1950s' and those of 1961 and 1965-66 (ibid. 199), the outburst of raiding in the 1960s (740 recorded deaths in 1966 alone), and disarmament by ceding 'spears' (ibid. 190; 199). There is even mention of climate change (ibid. 196). Writing in the 1970s, Baker uses a language of 'balance' that was soon to be questioned, (2) but the main point to draw from his analysis is methodological: as the foundation and precondition to any development programme in the rangelands, it is necessary to understand the pastoral production system 'as a working model' (ibid. 201) rather than dismissing it in principle as what needs to be replaced. Remarkably, the same idea is now stated upfront in the Policy Framework for Pastoralism recently adopted by the African Union (AU): 'Many past attempts to support pastoral development failed to recognize the strengths of pastoralism' (AU 2010: 3). Read today, Baker's analysis begs the question of to what extent this legacy of system-blind pastoral development was embedded in relevant infrastructure, institutions, and expertise in Uganda, and therefore was inevitably transmitted to the regimes that followed independence and so continue to play a role in present-day development approaches regarding Karamoja. Policy interventions and strategies, especially resource management policies, have affected pastoral systems in Uganda for almost a century. …