NGO WORK

Uganda Police Force is not accountable to citizens – new report

Published

8 years ago

November 27, 2017

By witnessradio.org Team

A new report released by Human Rights Network – Uganda (HURINET-U) claims that 53% of citizens living in Masaka and Kampala as well as 48% from in Wakiso have no faith in police’s role of keeping law and order thus making them feel unsafe.

Currently, Uganda has over 48,000 police officers with majority being deployed in urban centers Kampala inclusive.

The Report entitled “towards a Democratic and accountable police service: the public perception on the state of policing in Uganda took a keen look at police work for the past five years. The survey targeted Ugandans in eight districts of Uganda that include Kayunga, Masaka, Luweero, Jinja ,Wakiso, Kampala, Mpigi and Mukono.

The 116 pages report stated that lack of safety and security resulted into increased levels of criminality in the country, particularly gun violence and emergence of criminal gangs that continue to terrorize members of the public without being apprehended by the Uganda Police Force.

The report recorded an increase of crimes in communities in the last five years with Burglary and house break–in, ranked the most common crime related problem, followed by theft, murder, arson and sexual crimes.

Courts were not spared too and shared the blamed for the increased criminality due to the lenient sentences granted to those convicted. Other causes of the increase in crime trends include: police corruption, and inefficiency of local government structures and breakdown of community social structures as well as poor policing practices.

The report revealed that more Ugandans totaling to 49% in the covered districts are giving up on reporting cases to Uganda Police Force for fear of intimidation from perpetrators of crimes.

President Museveni on March 19th, 2017 said criminals had infiltrated the Uganda Police Force and other security agencies, which has compromised investigations into high profile killings. Museveni was speaking at the home of the slain Assistant Inspector General of Police Andrew Felix Kaweesi, the President ordered Gen Kale Kayihura to “clean the police of these infiltrators.

Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) reported that 1,658 cases of torture were registered between 2012 and 2016. In the report, Uganda Police alone was responsible for 1,016 torture complaints while the Uganda People’s Defence Forces followed closely with 275 cases.

The new report by HURINET UGANDA however indicated that the last five years have witnessed increased police visibility and accessibility across the eight districts covered by the survey. It reported that 54% of the respondents confirmed the police visibility through increased number of police stations/posts, presence of uniformed police officers in the public domain, increased motorized patrols and enhancement of community policing.

With a budget of over 528 billion shillings this Financial Year, the report found the state of police stations across the eight districts was wanting in all aspects and falls short of the established international standards. The stations are detached from the communities they serve; have dilapidated structures and police detention facilities do not meet the required minimum standards.

The Police force failed to protect its image as members of the public raised complaints of errant police officers who do not get the required remedy, leaving such officers not held accountable for their actions.

The report suggests that 66% of the respondents who had successfully reported their complaints to police were dissatisfied with the manner in which they were handled. They cited delayed response from police, poor handling of complaints and cases of corruption within the Professional Standards Unit (PSU). On the overall, the respondents were dissatisfied with the level at which Uganda Police was moving towards meeting tenets of democratic policing.

Also, the report attributed the low levels of responsiveness to community concerns on increased militarization of Uganda Police Force, lack of neutrality, abuse of human rights, lack of accountability by officers who commit human rights violations, poor handling of investigations and case files as well as existence of draconian laws that police has persistently applied selectively.

To this, HURINET-U wants an Independent Police Oversight Authority to replace the Professional Standards Unit (PSU) that will review the Police Standing Orders to ensure that they are consistent with modern policing procedures and the force streamlines the recruitment, promotion and transfer processes to ensure professionalism.

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NGO WORK

Climate wash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights

Published

2 months ago

November 13, 2025

witnessradio.org

Climate wash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights reveals how the Bank is appropriating climate commitments made at the Conference of the Parties (COP) to justify its multibillion-dollar initiative to “formalize” land tenure across the Global South. While the Bank claims that it is necessary “to access land for climate action,” Climatewash uncovers that its true aim is to open lands to agribusiness, mining of “transition minerals,” and false solutions like carbon credits – fueling dispossession and environmental destruction. Alongside plans to spend US$10 billion on land programs, the World Bank has also pledged to double its agribusiness investments to US$9 billion annually by 2030.

This report details how the Bank’s land programs and policy prescriptions to governments dismantle collective land tenure systems and promote individual titling and land markets as the norm, paving the way for private investment and corporate takeover. These reforms, often financed through loans taken by governments, force countries into debt while pushing a “structural transformation” that displaces smallholder farmers, undermines food sovereignty, and prioritizes industrial agriculture and extractive industries.

Drawing on a thorough analysis of World Bank programs from around the world, including case studies from Indonesia, Malawi, Madagascar, the Philippines, and Argentina, Climatewash documents how the Bank’s interventions are already displacing communities and entrenching land inequality. The report debunks the Bank’s climate action rhetoric. It details how the Bank’s efforts to consolidate land for industrial agriculture, mining, and carbon offsetting directly contradict the recommendations of the IPCC, which emphasizes the protection of lands from conversion and overexploitation and promotes practices such as agroecology as crucial climate solutions.

Read full report: Climatewash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights

Source: The Oakland Institute

NGO WORK

Africa’s Land Is Not Empty: New Report Debunks the Myth of “Unused Land” and Calls for a Just Future for the Continent’s Farmland

Published

2 months ago

November 13, 2025

witnessradio.org

A new report challenges one of the most persistent and harmful myths shaping Africa’s development agenda — the idea that the continent holds vast expanses of “unused” or “underutilised” land waiting to be transformed into industrial farms or carbon markets.

Titled Land Availability and Land-Use Changes in Africa (2025), the study exposes how this colonial-era narrative continues to justify large-scale land acquisitions, displacements, and ecological destruction in the name of progress.

Drawing on extensive literature reviews, satellite data, and interviews with farmers in Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, the report systematically dismantles five false assumptions that underpin the “land abundance” narrative:

That Africa has vast quantities of unused arable land available for cultivation
That modern technology can solve Africa’s food crisis
That smallholder farmers are unproductive and incapable of feeding the continent
That markets and higher yields automatically improve food access and nutrition
That industrial agriculture will generate millions of decent jobs

Each of these claims, the report finds, is deeply flawed. Much of the land labelled as “vacant” is, in reality, used for grazing, shifting cultivation, foraging, or sacred and ecological purposes. These multifunctional landscapes sustain millions of people and are far from empty.

The study also shows that Africa’s food systems are already dominated by small-scale farmers, who produce up to 80% of the continent’s food on 80% of its farmland. Rather than being inefficient, their agroecological practices are more resilient, locally adapted, and socially rooted than the industrial models promoted by external donors and corporations.

Meanwhile, the promise that industrial agriculture will lift millions out of poverty has not materialised. Mechanisation and land consolidation have displaced labour, while dependency on imported seeds and fertilisers has trapped farmers in cycles of debt and dependency.

A Continent Under Pressure

Beyond these myths, the report reveals a growing land squeeze as multiple global agendas compete for Africa’s territory: the expansion of mining for critical minerals, large-scale carbon-offset schemes, deforestation for timber and commodities, rapid urbanisation, and population growth.

Between 2010 and 2020, Africa lost more than 3.9 million hectares of forest annually — the highest deforestation rate in the world. Grasslands, vital carbon sinks and grazing ecosystems, are disappearing at similar speed.

Powerful actors — from African governments and Gulf states to Chinese investors, multinational agribusinesses, and climate-finance institutions — are driving this race for land through opaque deals that sideline local communities and ignore customary tenure rights.

A Call for a New Vision

The report calls for a radical shift away from high-tech, market-driven, land-intensive models toward people-centred, ecologically grounded alternatives. Its key policy recommendations include:

Promoting agroecology as a pathway for food sovereignty, ecological regeneration, and rural livelihoods.
Reducing pressure on land by improving agroecological productivity, cutting food waste, and prioritising equitable distribution.
Rejecting carbon market schemes that commodify land and displace communities.
Legally recognising customary land rights, particularly for women and Indigenous peoples.
Upholding the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) for all land-based investments.

This report makes it clear: Africa’s land is not “empty” — it is lived on, worked on, and cared for. The future of African land must not be dictated by global capital or outdated development theories, but shaped by the people who depend on it.

Download the Report

Read the full report Land Availability and Land-Use Changes in Africa (2025) to explore the evidence and policy recommendations in detail.

Source: Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)

NGO WORK

Discover How Foreign Interests and Resource Extraction Continue to Drive Congo’s Crisis

Published

2 months ago

November 12, 2025

witnessradio.org

Whereas Donald Trump hailed the “peace” agreement between Rwanda and DRC as marking the end of a deadly three-decade war, a new report from the Oakland Institute, Shafted: The Scramble for Critical Minerals in the DRC, exposes it as the latest US maneuver to control Congolese critical minerals.

Under the Guise of Peace

After three decades of deadly wars and atrocities, the June 2025 “peace” deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) lays bare the United States’ role in entrenching the extraction of minerals under the guise of diplomacy. For decades, US backing of Rwanda and Uganda has fueled the violence, which has ripped millions of Congolese lives apart while enabling the looting of the country’s mineral wealth. Today, Washington presents itself as a broker of peace, yet its longstanding support for Rwanda made it possible for M23 to seize territory, capture key mining sites, and forced Kinshasa to the negotiation table with hands tied behind its back. By legitimizing Rwanda’s territorial advances, the US-brokered agreement effectively rewards aggression while sidelining accountability, justice for victims, and the sovereignty of the Congolese people.

The incorporation of “formalized” mineral supply chains from eastern DRC to Rwanda exposes the pact’s true aim: Securing access to and control over minerals under the guise of diplomacy and “regional integration.” Framed as peacemaking, this is part of United States’ broader geopolitical struggle with China for control over critical resources. Far from fostering peace – over a thousand civilians have been killed since the deal was signed while parallel negotiations with Rwanda’s rebel force have collapsed – this arrangement risks deepening Congo’s subjugation. Striking deals with the Trump administration and US firms, the DRC government is surrendering to a new era of exploitation while the raging war continues, driving the unbearable suffering of the Congolese people.

Introduction

The conflict in eastern DRC, which dates back three decades to the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and subsequent Congo Wars, has claimed over six million lives, displaced millions more, and inflicted widespread suffering. Since late 2021, Rwanda and its proxy militia, M23, have stormed through mineral-rich lands and regional capitals, inflicting brutal violence and triggering mass displacement. While billions of dollars in natural resources are extracted from the area, Congolese communities toil in extreme poverty.

On June 27, 2025, a “peace” agreement was signed between Rwanda and the DRC under the auspices of the Trump administration, with diplomatic assistance from Qatar.¹ The deal included pledges to respect the territorial integrity of both countries, to promote peaceful relations through the disarmament of armed groups, the return of refugees, and the creation of a joint security mechanism. A key clause commits the countries to launch a regional economic integration framework that would entail “mutually beneficial partnerships and investment opportunities,” specifically for the extraction of the DRC’s mineral wealth by US private interests.

Placing the deal in a historical perspective – after three decades of conflict and over seven decades of US chess game around Congolese minerals – this report examines its implications for the Congolese people as well as the interests involved in the plunder of the country’s resources.

The report begins by retracing 30 years of war, fueled by the looting of Congo’s mineral wealth and devastating for the people of eastern DRC. It then examines how US policy in Central Africa, from the Cold War to the present, has been shaped by its interest in Congolese minerals, sustained alliances with Rwanda and Uganda, and a consistent pattern of overlooking atrocities in support of these allies.

The report then analyses the implications of the regional economic integration aspect of the deal, which aims to link mineral supply chains in the DRC and Rwanda with US investors. The last sections examine the prospect for lasting peace and security resulting from the deal and the impact of growing involvement of US private actors in DRC and Rwanda.

Original Source: Oakland Institute