The ‘Mobilising the Ugandan Business Community for Peace’ scoping study project undertaken by International Alert and funded by Swedish SIDA, ran from October 2005-July 2006. The purpose of the research was to assess the potential of the private sector in Uganda to address Uganda’s conflicts and contribute to peacebuilding. It was also intended to lay the groundwork for any future SIDA/ International Alert work in this area.
Alert has found through its research and field work around the world that the domestic private sector – whether operating at the level of industry leader or at a smaller-scale of activity, including in the informal sector – is often motivated to contribute to peace, and in some situations can have the resources, skills and capacities to do so, across a range of peacebuilding areas.Recognition and understanding of a ‘positive’ face of business activity in conflict zones adds a valuable new layer to the inquiry into ‘war economies’ that is underway internationally. War economies research points to the powerful role certain types of business activity can play in determining the duration, intensity and character of civil conflict.With regard to some conflicts, recognition of these dynamics has helped policy-makers develop responses that seek to limit and transform them – for example through seeking to curtail trade in certain ‘conflict commodities’. Taken together, research and response to business and conflict/ business and peace represents a critical new area of peacebuilding policy and practice.
Figure 1 sets out a spectrum of domestic private sector responses to violent conflict taken from a recent Alert publication, from negative conflict sustaining activities, through to conflict reducing or ‘peacebuilding’ interventions and approaches.
The purpose of this research project was to shed light on such dynamics as they relate to latent or existing conflicts in Uganda, with a particular emphasis on any potential at the right-end of the spectrum in Figure 1. The specific question it set out to answer is: “Can (pockets of) the Ugandan business community be mobilised for peacebuilding?” The findings are to some extent impressionistic, being based on consultations undertaken during four trips to Kampala and one each to the following regions: Northern Uganda, West Nile, Karamoja and south-western Uganda – selected for their recent or current experience of armed violence – as well as on background literature and available data. In each region, interviews and focus groups following a loose interview map were held with stakeholders from each of: business (including local chambers of commerce and businesspeople, market traders etc); civil society (especially those working on conflict issues); local government; international development agencies present in the region; and in some cases the military and ex-combatants. The present document is a summary of a longer presentation of findings submitted to SIDA.
