The United Nations for Dummies

August 17th 2015

Today is our last Monday at work. Looking back, I realize I’ve written very little about the actual work we’ve been doing here over the last few months. So it seems appropriate to write a post about the most recent project we were working on. Namely, a shadow report that Jeremy and I wrote on behalf of a coalition of over twenty non-governmental organizations (NGOs). We submitted it on Friday, and the report will soon be distributed to these and other NGOs, including the Uganda Human Rights Commission. Most importantly, it will (hopefully) be incorporated into Uganda’s National Action Plan (NAP), as well as being sent to the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva to be used in the second Universal Periodic Review process. Pretty exciting stuff. Especially given that I wasn’t expecting to be writing shadow reports until years down the road. So no pressure or anything.

But what is a shadow report you ask? And what is the Universal Periodic Review? Good questions. Answering these will be the focus of this post, which will require a bit of an explanation of the United Nations system. Hence the title ‘The United Nations for Dummies’. I’ve never actually read one of the For Dummies books, so they may even have one about the UN, but here’s my version anyways (disclaimer – I’m writing this without access to internet, so the details could be a bit fuzzy):

As you probably know, the UN was established in 1945. It was meant to be a sort of new and improved League of Nations. It currently has 193 member states, and as such it is one of the first examples of global governance. What is it governing? Essentially, it is monitoring human rights and promoting peace and security. Its main purpose is to set, monitor and enforce international human rights standards. To do so, the UN came up with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which outlines the fundamental rights that all people have simply by nature of being human. From there, the UN created nine covenants that go into more detail on these rights. These include the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, etc. You get the idea.

Once these covenants were created, member states have the option to ratify them. By ratifying a covenant the state in question basically says that they commit to ensuring that every citizen of that state has these rights.* And they commit to dealing with violations of these rights accordingly. So, for example, a country that ratified the Convention of the Rights of the Child would be completely free of child abuse, child labour, etc. In an ideal world.

Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world. Many states have ratified covenants but still have widespread human rights violations. Uganda for example has ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, yet many of these rights aren’t even included in their Constitution.

So, what makes a state’s ratification more than just words on paper? What mechanisms are in place to enforce the rights laid out in the nine covenants? When a state ratifies a covenant, they also agree to complete a system of reporting. Essentially, each signatory state is supposed to submit a report every four to five years on the situation of each particular human right. The report should outline what mechanisms the state has put in place to enforce the human right, and what challenges they still face. So, for example, a state that ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination would probably talk about the different ethnic groups within the state, studies that have been done examining what types of discrimination they face, and maybe initiatives like equal opportunity employment. Each reporting cycle, the UN reads these reports and from them evaluates the state’s progress. If there are problems, they may assign a Special Rapporteur to go investigate the human rights issues in the given country. Alternatively, the UN may utilize the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court. Sounds great right?

Wrong. Believe it or not, this system isn’t actually very effective. In fact, the biggest critique of the UN system is that it lacks teeth. Countries regularly fail to submit their reports, and they don’t get penalized for it. Further, when states do submit reports they often overstate the good and leave out the bad. States want to look better than they are, so they don’t own up to everything. Moreover, Special rapporteurs are only allowed to investigate a country with the country’s permission. So it’s all well and good to agree to these lofty rights, but if the UN is unable to enforce them then it loses all its power. And if states can’t be held accountable, then the conventions become laughable.

One way to combat the inaccuracy of state reports is through shadow reports. Like state reports, shadow reports outline the situation of a particular human right in the state in question. The difference is that shadow reports are written by NGOs and concerned citizens. Because they are not from the government they don’t have a vested interest in making the state look good. As such, shadow reports often offer a much more accurate depiction of where a country is at. For example, I once read China’s state report to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. I was writing a paper on forced sterilizations of women in Tibet by the Chinese military, which is a wide-spread issue. But in the state report there was no mention of this attempted reproductive genocide, or even sterilizations more generally. The only thing mentioned was the One Child Policy, and it was framed in terms of its effectiveness with population control. On the other hand, the shadow reports I read gave detailed explanations of the illegal sterilization, and contained quotes from Tibetan women who had been forcibly sterilized. A much more holistic and reliable source if you ask me.

Unfortunately, even with shadow reports it is still hard to hold states accountable. Recognizing this, the UN came up with an additional system. In 2006 they implemented the first Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The purpose of the UPR is to do a holistic assessment of human rights in each member state. To do so, each state submits a report, and NGOs and citizens are welcome to submit shadow reports. It is a peer review process, so for each session three states are assigned to review the human rights situation of other states (based on the aforementioned reports). Based on these they give recommendations. Each state should consider and adopt these recommendations, and their progress will be reviewed in the next UPR.

The first UPR process was recently completed, and the UN is now beginning the second. Uganda will be reviewed for the second time in the Spring of 2016, during the UPR’s 26th Session. Further, Uganda is currently in the process of developing a National Action Plan. This was one of the recommendations given to Uganda during the last UPR. The NAP will give a holistic overview of the steps needed to improve human rights in Uganda.

This is where we come in. Food Rights Alliance (FRA) – along with two other organizations and their partners – was recently asked to submit a shadow report for the UPR and for the development of the NAP. As FRA and its partners are particularly concerned with Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCRs), these are the focus of the report. More specifically, the report focuses on the right to food, women’s rights, the rights of children’s and youth, and the right to information.

To gather information on the above topics, FRA and the other organizations held a civil society consultative meeting on Friday August 7th. In the meeting attendees voiced their opinions, while consultants for the NAP process listened attentively (at least I hope they did). Meanwhile, Jeremy and I frantically transcribed everything that was said. Later, we would use these comments to craft the shadow report.

Unfortunately I was sick in bed for most of last week, so I was working on the shadow report between naps (and no, I don’t mean the National Action Plan). Luckily, Jeremy was super understanding and more than equipped to plow ahead without me (thanks Jeremy, I owe you one!). As a result, we were able to submit the report on Friday evening, and are hoping to see it distributed in the next few days. Fingers crossed that we didn’t completely screw it up!

So there you go: a description of some of our work here in Uganda, and a detailed explanation of the UN system to boot. Wasn’t that fun?

Sorry if I put you to sleep. I promise the next post will be more interesting.
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*States can also have reservations to a covenant. Basically if they agree with everything in a covenant EXCEPT one article, they can choose to ratify the covenant, excluding that article. For instance, several Middle Eastern states have reservations to the Convention of the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, because certain articles go against their cultural and religious beliefs. But states are only allowed a certain number of reservations per covenant before it jeopardizes their ratification.

A Day at the Center of the Earth

July 11th 2015

When I say the center of the earth of course I don’t mean the scorching hot, inaccessible, molten core of the planet. Rather I mean the topographic center – the halfway point between the North and the South Poles. In other words, the equator.

Kampala sits about one degree above the equator, which explains its tropical weather and the lack of seasons. There are actually only ten countries that the equator runs through, as 79% of the others places at zero degrees latitude are in the ocean. So the fact that the division between the Northern and Southern hemispheres is only an hour’s drive from Kampala is pretty cool. Obviously we had to experience it for ourselves, so today we took a field trip to the center of the earth.

In Uganda the equator is marked by a giant white spherical sculpture off the side of the highway. A line runs across the road showing where one hemisphere ends and the other begins. A few feet on either side of the line there are wide basins set up, with one also straddling the line. The purpose of these basins are to show how water spins clockwise on one side of the line, and counterclockwise on the other. To demonstrate this, a local man filled the basins with water and then placed a flower in the center. As the water drained through the hole in the bottom of the basin the flower twirled accordingly. After demonstrating this phenomenon in the basins on either side of the line, he filled the one directly on the equator. Unlike with the other two basins, when he placed the flower in it the water drained out, but the flower remained still. Yup, definitely on the equator. There was only the different of a few meters between the basins, but gravity worked differently in each one. Science!

After hemisphere hopping and snapping the above pictures, our co-worker took us to his village a few kilometers away. After several minutes on a bumpy dirt road, we arrived at a lovely brick house which we soon learned was where he grew up. His mother – a school teacher and mother of ten – came out to greet us. After introductions were made our co-worker and his mother proceeded to show us around the complex, which turned out to be far more inspiring than your average house tour.

First, our co-worker and his mother showed us the livestock. Behind the house and the various adjoining mud buildings there were pens full of pigs, ducks, chickens, and a dog. They explained that the latter was for security purposes. There was also a stall for cows, but they were out grazing in the fields. After that they took us through their extensive gardens. In the space of about fifty meters they were growing sweet potatoes, corn, chili peppers, coffee, cassava, beans, five different species of bananas, and avocado, orange, passion fruit and mango trees. There was even a neem tree that they explained was used to cure colds, and a tree with leaves whose sandpaper-like texture made them ideal for scrubbing pots.

It didn’t take us long to realize that we’d stumbled into every sustainability or IDS students’ dream. We couldn’t help but be awed. Not only was there an incredible variety of plants, but the small farm was clearly being masterfully managed. Different types of crops were planted side by side to enrich the soil, and all the fruits had been collected so there were barely any rotting on the ground. Even more impressively, our co-worker’s mother told us that the household rarely has to buy food, since they grow enough and enough varieties to sustain themselves. She explained how they would save enough to eat, and then sell the rest. Since her children are all grown up and she is the head of the local school, she had hired a few workers to help with the weeding and harvesting.

Not only was the small household completely self-sufficient, but they let nothing go to waste. For example, behind the house there were two huge metal drums used to collect water during the rainy season. Moreover, the long grass that was growing sporadically is dried and used to make brooms. There was even a biogas system, where cow dung was processed to produce gas. Afterwards the manure was used to fertilize the gardens, or even to enforce the walls of the older houses. That’s a pretty impressive list of uses for cow poop if you ask me.

After our brief tour I found it hard to imagine a more sustainable, self-sufficient, or well managed plot of land.* To top it all off, after the tour we were ushered inside to eat a huge lunch made of food grown right outside the door. The only things purchased were the rice and the pineapple for dessert. It was all delicious of course, and we were left with full bellies and food for thought (sorry, I had to).

But our lessons of the day didn’t end with agriculture. As we waited for lunch we learned that our co-worker and our boss are actually cousins. Moreover, the other intern who had come with us on the trip is said co-worker’s nephew, making our co-worker’s mom his grandmother. This discovery started us off down a whole line of questioning into the nature of Ugandan families. Through about an hour of listening, we learned that they are complicated. Here’s why:**

Firstly, being an extremely patriarchal society, it’s common for men in Uganda to have multiple wives. This means that most people have many half-siblings, multiple grandmothers, etc. Furthermore, women seem to have anywhere from four to twelve children each. So one man can have upwards of thirty or forty children. There are several reasons for such large families: partly for security in case children die young, partly to have many hands to help out, and partly because contraceptives aren’t always widely available. Furthermore, even when contraceptives are available many Ugandans are very Catholic and therefore choose not to use them. Also, men often discourage women from taking them, or women will have had a bad experience with one type and therefore swear off all of them. Either way, the result is many children.

But I’m getting off topic. The point is, the large nature of Ugandan families means that people are raised with a strong sense of community (going back to the idea of Ubuntu discussed briefly in my last post). And as if a typical Ugandan’s family tree isn’t complicated enough, there is then the matter of clans. During our pre-lunch conversation I learned that Uganda has 52 clans which have existed for centuries. Each clan has a totem – for example our co-worker’s clan is represented by the mud fish. You may never eat the animal that is your totem (so you better hope it’s not a chicken or cow). You also can’t marry someone from your clan since they are probably related to you by blood. Even though these rules aren’t written down, they are common knowledge and seem to carry the weight of any law.

The clans also make up kingdoms. I’m pretty sure Uganda has five kingdoms, the largest of which is called Buganda. In fact, Uganda was named after the Buganda kingdom. Buganda has eighteen counties, one of which includes Kampala. Bugandans speak Luganda, which is the most common language in Kampala. However, different regions have different languages, making traveling within the country very confusing.

Naturally, each kingdom also has a king. The king of Buganda lives in Kampala, and his palace is near the city center.*** The king is not a political figure – rather he represents the epitome of Buganda culture. However, he arguably has more sway over the people here than the president does, and therefore his power is not insignificant. This is despite the fact that the kingdoms were only recently reinstated, after being abolished by the president who preceded Idi Amin. Yet despite its 30+ year hiatus, Buganda seems to have stayed incredibly strong. This is in part due to its rigorous structure, whereby there is a representative of the king in every community. Even when the British arrived to colonize the area, they were impressed by the incredibly structured ruling system. In fact, they were so impressed that they didn’t even attempt to dismantle it, and rather sought to manipulate it from the inside.

Finally, one of the most interesting things I learned about Buganda is the way they choose the heir to the throne. Our co-worker explained that the heir can be any of the king’s children, and the eldest child is not allowed to take the throne. Furthermore, the heir is chosen in secret. In fact, the heir’s birth is never even announced. This is because once he is chosen he is sent to be raised by a family who the king trusts. He us raised as an average Ugandan, and isn’t told that he is heir to the throne until the king dies. Pretty exciting right? The purpose of this secrecy and false identity is for the king to be raised like a commoner, so he can understand his people. That way when he has to rule them he’ll know firsthand about their problems. Sounds like a pretty good system to me!

Alright. I’ll stop there with the history lesson (partly because it’s getting late here, but mostly because I’ve run out of facts). I hope you’ve enjoyed my summary of what I learned today as much as I enjoyed learning it. Thanks to today’s lessons in history and agriculture I’ll be going to bed saturated and exhausted – and not only because I spent the day in two hemispheres!
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*In my limited experience, the only thing that wasn’t amazingly managed was the building where the cooking was done. Smoke billowed out from charcoal fires, which is known to be a key source of respiratory diseases in the so called Global South.

**As usual, please note that my knowledge is limited so the following account might not be entirely accurate. This is just my understanding of Ugandan culture from what I learned today.

***One of his daughters is actually on Jeremy’s swim team – small world.

So…What’s the Plan?

June 30th 2015

Four years ago I made a plan. It’s a simple plan really, spanning approximately eight years. It goes like this:

Step 1. Get a B.A. in a subject (or subjects) that I am interested in. Make sure it is broad enough to accumulate general knowledge about the world and give me a sense of what options are out there.

Step 2. Take one or two years off after my degree. Spend those years traveling and being outdoors, while still making enough money to support myself. Don’t worry about pursuing a career, just do things that I won’t be able to do later in life (i.e. becoming a diving instructor or backpacking around South America). Also in this time figure out what I want to do with my life.

Step 3. With my new found wisdom and life experience decide on a subject that I want to pursue my Masters in. Have gotten good enough grades in my undergrad to get into a good school (hopefully somewhere abroad).

Step 4. Work on my next plan based on how this one turns out.

Pretty simple right? As someone who tends to live spontaneously this is as close to a finite plan as I could get while still keeping my options open. It provides comfort, but also flexibility. And as of right now – four years in – I’m right on track. I’ve successfully completed step one: I have a combined honours degree in Political Science and International Development Studies with a 3.6 GPA (not great, but not horrible).

I’ve now moved on to step 2: discovering life outside of school. In my two years off I always imagined myself climbing mountains or bumming around Europe. Never did I imagine having a job in my field, of all places. But as it turns out, the four years I just spent slaving away in the Killam Library have actually qualified me for something (go figure!). This internship presented itself before I’d even finished my exams, and my hunt for fall jobs has already come up with a plethora of options (although applying for them is another matter). I guess as a bright eyed and bushy tailed recent graduate I am a desirable candidate for NGO and non-profit work.

Of course I should be thrilled. Isn’t this what everyone wants, to get a job in the area they studied? Even if it’s only for the summer. But counter intuitively, in my plan the express purpose of my next two years is to NOT work in my field. I want to  try all sorts of things before I have to settle into a ‘career’ or a ‘profession’ (what do those words even mean?). I’ve focused so intensively on political science and international development studies for the last four years that now I want something different. I want to get a certificate in photography, or be trained in Wilderness First Aid. I’m worried that it would be too easy to stick to what I’m qualified for and never get to try anything else.

It would be a different story if I felt that I’d found my calling – if I knew that the NGO world is for me and I never want to work in any other sector. But that’s not the case. True to form, as soon as my options start to narrow I freak out and open them up again. I’m much better at knowing what I don’t want to do than what I do. And the seven weeks I’ve spent working for Food Rights Alliance have been eye-opening to say the least.

Being here I’m getting firsthand experience in the NGO world. Every week our boss sends Jeremy and I to numerous meetings put on by various civil society organizations. There we listen to presentations and frantically take notes on taxation in the budget, seed policy, GMOs, land tenure rights, bilateral trade agreements, foreign direct investment, etc. Seven weeks in it now feels normal to put on nice clothes every day and carry my heavy briefcase to the office where I spend eight hours researching and writing, researching and writing. I’ve learned more about agriculture and food security being here than I knew in my whole life. On top of that, my co-workers are all young and smart and some of the hardest workers I’ve ever met. And my boss is an impressive woman who acts as much like our mother as she does our supervisor (last week on the way to a meeting she found out I’m vegetarian and gave me a lecture on getting enough iron). Basically, I scored.

But being here I’m also beginning to understand the reality of working for a non-profit. People don’t march into work every day holding banners and burning with a desire to change the world (don’t worry, I knew that before I came here). Instead it’s a lot of report writing and fundraising. Buzzwords like ‘capacity building’ and ‘behavioral change’ are applied to every situation. Every day is an uphill battle and at the end of it no one knows if progress has been made. And what is meant to be an hour long meeting can stretch out over two days (that might just be a Ugandan thing though. God I hope it’s just a Ugandan thing). I know that the NGO world isn’t perfect, but it’s disheartening to see how bogged down in rhetoric and procedures everyone is.

In contrast, I’m used to taking an experiential learning approach. I was raised by a facilitator who confidently marches into meetings carrying a briefcase full of balloons and gets all the men and women in suits laughing and participating. Most of my job experience is working with kids with chronic illnesses or from disadvantaged backgrounds – preparing programs and games to help them develop self-confidence and leadership skills. I know working for an NGO isn’t the same as working for a camp, but the principle of engaging people is the same, and that’s something I’m good at. I know how to get a group of people working towards a common goal, and I can do it without using projectors and spreadsheets. I guess it just took coming to Kampala to realize the value of skills I already have.

So is working for an NGO everything I dreamed of and more? Yes and no. I like the people, I’m interested in the issues, and it keeps me questioning what’s right and wrong and what I believe. But there is too much rhetoric and not enough of an experiential approach, both within the organization and in the work being done. Often meetings will end and there will be no clear tangible outcomes. You have to wade through the politics to get to the heart of the matter, and even then it isn’t clear what to do. The work being done here is very valuable and definitely has its place, but I’m just trying to figure out where I fit in it, if anywhere.

I’m not trying to say that I have all the answers – most likely I don’t have any of them. I’m just learning, and I only have seven weeks of experience under my belt. Furthermore, I know that not every NGO is the same, so I shouldn’t use this one example to characterize them all. But I am realizing where my strengths lie, and how they can fill the gaps in this type of work. I still have no idea whether the NGO world is where I’ll end up, but if it is at least I now know a bit more about what I’d be getting myself into.

For now, I’m just sticking with my plan and seeing where it takes me.

Trading in Rhetoric: When David said no to Goliath

June 6th, 2015

Everyone knows the biblical story of David and Goliath. It is the classic example of the underdog rising up to beat the unbeatable opponent. Even though it occurred in Israel thousands of years ago, people still use David and Goliath’s battle as a metaphor for beating the odds. Heck, Malcolm Gladwell even wrote a book with that title. Unfortunately however, stories like that of David and Goliath rarely actually occur (why do you think we’re still using an example from thousands of years ago?). In the real world David often takes a good beating from Goliath and goes home to skulk and lick his wounds. End of story.

The United States of America likes to see itself as a modern day David equivalent. They started off as the underdog: a British colony inhabited by settlers who came to the ‘New World’ in search of a better life. After years of being under Britain’s thumb, they finally gained their independence in 1776, and have since risen to become a superpower. The Little Americans Who Could beat the big bad British Empire. And with independence, the American Dream was born. No longer did your class determine your place in life – if you were a mechanic but wanted to be a lawyer, you could do it! If you were a high school cheerleader, you could one day become President! (Yes I’m talking about you George W. Bush). If however you were a slave – taken from your community in Africa to come be beaten to death in the ‘Free World’ – you pretty much had to stay a slave. Darn. Sorry fellas, better luck next time.

But I’m getting off track: Although America may have started out as a modern day David, it is now most certainly a Goliath. Fast forward past the abolition of slavery, a few World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement and the Cold War, and you have the global hegemony that America enjoys today. That’s the funny thing about success: you may start out with your whole image built around being the underdog, but once you’ve worked your way to the top, fighting tooth and nail, you earn the ability to do to others what was done to you when you were at the bottom. The oppressed become the oppressors, and the cycle continues, despite your promises that you would never sink to that level. Power is a funny thing.

Ok, so what does all that have to do with being in Uganda? Quite a bit actually. But let me rewind to what got me thinking about all of this in the first place: on Thursday Shelby, Jeremy and I had the good fortune of being invited to a Regional Stakeholder Consultative Meeting on Promoting Pro-Development Investment Policies and Agreements in the East African Community (EAC).* Quite the mouthful of a title. Essentially, the meeting was to discuss trade between Uganda and other, more developed countries (namely the United States and countries in the EU). Now, my knowledge of trade agreements is fuzzy at best, so for most of the day-long meeting I was frantically typing down things I didn’t understand, hoping that they would formulate themselves into coherent ideas later. But no such luck. So please take the following explanation of international trade with a grain of salt, and if I butcher it I apologize:**

Over the last several years East Africa has had a spike in economic growth. In fact, of the top 20 fastest growing economies in the world, three of them are in East Africa. This region is resource-rich and as such it possesses valuable commodities like minerals that can be used in cellphones and computers (odds are at least a small percentage of your smartphone originated in East Africa). Naturally, countries that don’t have these resources want to get their hands on them. One way to do this is through foreign direct investment, or FDIs. Basically an FDI is exactly what it sounds like: a foreign country invests in a country they are interested in, which in theory gives the former country the resources they want, and the latter country’s economy is boosted and more local jobs are generated.***Because these are desirable outcomes for a country like Uganda, for the past several years the Ugandan Investment Authority has been promoting FDIs.

To take it one step further, now Uganda is looking into signing Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with the US and countries in the EU to help facilitate FDIs and other types of trade between the nations. The idea is that the US and the EU will have access to the resources they want, and Uganda can grow its economy with the hope of becoming a so called developed country. It’s a win win right?

Wrong. To see why, let’s go back to the story of David and Goliath: Goliath was bigger and stronger than David, and no one could argue that it was a fair fight. But because it’s a story – and maybe Goliath was having an off day, slept on the wrong side of the bed or something – David miraculously won. But that outcome was very, very unlikely. Probably about the same likelihood of an average American winning the lottery, and therefore reinforcing the idea of the American Dream. So let me propose a different course of action: What if instead of choosing to fight Goliath, David had turned it down? What if instead he politely said, “No thank you, you’re much bigger and stronger than I am, so I’d be a fool to think I could beat you. I’m no gambler, so I think I’ll need to hit the gym for a little while longer before I’ll be ready to fight. Maybe throw a few extra protein shakes into my diet, or do some crossfit (even though it seems a bit like a cult).Either way, I’ve clearly got some work to do, so why don’t I give you a call when I’ve bulked up a bit?” This scenario wouldn’t have been nearly as exciting, but it definitely would have increased David’s chances of winning in a fight against Goliath.

What Food Rights Alliance, SEATINI, and the other NGOs were arguing for at the trade meeting on Thursday was essentially a version of this alternative scenario. They saw right through the presentations by the sleazy reps from the Ministry of Trade who advocated for BIT agreements with the US. In 2008 the East African Community (EAC) signed a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with the US where parties undertook to monitor and promote bilateral trade and investment between them, and now they want to move forward with this Investment Model Treaty. The EAC wants to take on Goliath, but SEATINI, FRA and the other organizations want them to wait. They want them to wait because while FDIs are fashionable, there is no evidence that they actually help a country develop. Sure they boost economic growth, but depending on the sector there are often very few jobs created, and those that are created are low level, low wage jobs.

Furthermore, foreign investors have their own agenda. They aren’t interested in helping Uganda develop; they’re here for inputs, markets, and cheap labour. Their interests are governed by the logic of capital accumulation. The reality is, they’re here to purchase Uganda’s raw materials at low prices, take them back home to process, and then sell the products for much higher prices. And what does Uganda get in return? A bit of economic growth, and the hope that by doing business with developed countries they will develop. Sounds to me like the US is getting tangible materials, and all Uganda gets in return is rhetoric and ideology – their very own American Dream. But ideology won’t feed people, and neither will rhetoric.

Back in the day Britain wanted America to sign a Free Trade agreement, but America said no. They recognized the need to protect their agrarian economy, because as a Professor of Political Science said at Thursday’s meeting, “free trade is not for the faint hearted”. Instead of accepting Britain’s offer, America invested in themselves and overtime their economy and their power grew. Then, years later when they were strong enough, they went back and re-tabled the idea of free trade with Britain. In this case David did exactly what Goliath didn’t want him to do: he waited until he was strong enough to fight, and then he won.

Now America is Goliath and the EAC is David. Goliath is asking David to fight, and it looks like David is going to fall for it. Unless the NGOs represented on Thursday can get their voices heard:**** they recognized that despite what it looks like, the EAC is actually holding all the cards. They have the goods, and all America has in exchange is some money and a dying idea that they’ve been peddling for decades.

My mom, a facilitator, says that you always have the most power before you sign a contract. That’s when you still have room to make requests and hammer out your terms. Similarly, the EAC is in a powerful position right now. As one representative at the meeting asked, “is one of the barriers to Uganda’s development not having a trade agreement with the US? Is Uganda losing by not signing the agreement?” The answer is no, they aren’t. Uganda has what America wants, and they can choose to give it to them or not. And as the professor of Political Science pointed out, “if trade and investment treaties are the answer, then what’s the question?” The proposed trade agreement says it will protect investments in both territories – but Uganda doesn’t have any investments in America, so really what it is saying is that Uganda will agree to protect America. Seems a bit counter intuitive given that Uganda is the one that needs protecting.

As the same Professor stated, “salvation never comes from overseas”. Therefore, it sounds like it’s time for Uganda and the EAC to invest in itself. If it develops a strong industrial base then it can process the raw materials found in this country, and therefore be able to provide for themselves and sell the resulting products at higher prices. As Obama said, “markets make good servants but bad masters”. Signing this agreement would put the market in the driver’s seat, and Uganda’s development would become a mere footnote on the agenda, instead of the main focus. Uganda has only been independent for roughly 60 years – if it waits about 140 years more, it just might be ready to beat Goliath.
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*Our boss told us she had asked if she could “bring her children along” to the meeting (i.e. me and Jeremy). For a woman without children she is one of the most motherly people I know – especially when it comes to teaching her children lessons. Many a meeting has been punctuated by a teachable moment where she tells us and our co-workers how to chair a meeting, how to secure funding, etc.

** This explanation is essentially trade of dummies. Not because I don’t think you can understand the complexity of trade agreements, but because I don’t. In this case I’m the dummy.

***For a more detailed explanation of FDIs please toodle your way on over to Jeremy’s highly informative blog. He does a great job of explaining it.

****Sitting in Thursday’s meeting and listening to the brilliant people around me defend their country I couldn’t help but feel warm and fuzzy inside. Is it possible to feel patriotic for a country you aren’t from?

Fasting for the Constitution

June 1st 2015

On Friday morning all I managed to eat before rushing off to work was two bites of toast with nutella. At the time it seemed insignificant, but I would soon come to regret my flippant disregard of the saying “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. Little did I know that those bites of toast were the only food I would eat for the better part of the day.

For our second week at work Jeremy and I had been tasked with helping our boss facilitate a five day training session for an NGO called the Central Archdiocesan Province Caritas Association (CAPCA). The aim was to help them develop an advocacy results framework, a behavioral change tool, and a monitoring and evaluation framework. This work was punctuated by regular breaks for tea, snacks, and large lunches that kept me full until bedtime. So when I ran out the door on Friday morning leaving my breakfast half finished, I assumed I would be happily full within the hour. Unfortunately for my stomach – but fortunately for my personal development – at about 10am we received a call from Shelby telling us that her boss had asked if we could represent our organization, Food Rights Alliance, at parliament for a meeting with the Parliamentary Committee on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to propose constitutional amendments.

That was a lot of information in one sentence, so let me slow down a bit. As Jeremy explains in his blog post (link here: https://jeremyryant.wordpress.com/2015/05/31/entry-10-sunday-may-31st-2015-let-them-eat-cake/), constitutional amendments happen very rarely. Even in Uganda where they are somewhat frequent, the chance only comes around every ten years or so. So the fact that they are making amendments now is big. Very, very big . As green, wide-eyed Political Science students, this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Luckily, our presence at the meeting would benefit everyone since no one else from the office was able to attend, so within an hour we had hopped on a boda boda and were speeding towards parliament along with Shelby and her boss. Two rounds of semi-thorough security screenings later, we found ourselves mounting a flight of winding stairs lined with faded pictures of the Queen playing croquette, and the leader of the opposition standing in front of a class of uniformed children. After correcting several wrong turns, we arrived outside a crowded conference room, our hearts in our throats. Since the meetings were running over two hours late and there was no waiting area, we were squeezed onto a row of chairs framing the room. There we waited and listened as numerous stakeholder groups presented their proposed amendments to a row of five or so MPs who weren’t holed up in budgetary meetings somewhere else in the building. Since the meetings were running late the chairman of the meeting announced that they would be working through lunch. Jokingly he explained how we would all be “fasting for the constitution”.

Let me pause here and give you a bit more context. I already mentioned that the purpose of the meetings was to get input from interest groups regarding what constitutional amendments they want to see. These amendments will specifically focus on social, economic, and cultural rights. Without getting into too much detail, on January 3rd 1976 the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights came into force as one of nine similar agreements created by the United Nations to govern the global enforcement of human rights (along with political and civil rights, the rights of the child, the elimination of racial discrimination, etc.). This particular covenant enshrines the right to safe employment, access to adequate healthcare, the right to housing, sanitation, food, etc. Uganda ratified it in 1987, meaning in theory it should be working towards the full realization of these rights. However since 1987 Uganda has not submitted a single report to the United Nations – something which they are required to do every five years. Furthermore, despite having ratified this international covenant, these rights are not protected under the Ugandan constitution. Therefore the fact that they are now taking steps to include these rights in their constitution – again, in theory – is both very exciting and long overdue. And as an NGO that advocates for the right to safe and accessible food, Food Rights Alliance has a vested interest in ensuring this happens (hence our presence at the meeting).

So, back to the story. As we sat in that crowded, sweaty room, our stomachs growled but we were listening raptly to the conversations between the other NGOs and the members of parliament. Each organization made valuable suggestions, often very much in line with the ones we were hoping to propose. The MPs seemed receptive, although how receptive they actually were remains to be seen. At one point however a discussion started around budgetting. One NGO had suggested included the right to food in the constitution, to which the chairman of the meeting replied that Uganda does not have the funds to make such a promise.

Wait.

Rewind.

What did he just say?

WHAT?!

That was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. My blood started to boil.

Ok, calm down. Let’s think this through.

He said Uganda doesn’t have the funds to promise its people the right to food. True, it is the third poorest country in the world. Although culturally and geographically rich, 37.7% of Uganda’s people live in extreme poverty (i.e. less than $1.25 USD/day). With a GDP of 21.49 USD in 2013, it is true that the government here has very little money.

That being said, since arriving in Kampala I’ve seen more police officers and military personnel than I’ve seen in the rest of my lifetime. They flood the streets like a colony of ants. In 2013 Uganda spent 1.9% of it’s GDP on the military – that’s almost double the percentage of what Canada spends. Moreover, in 2005 the World Bank estimated that Uganda is losing $300 million per year through corruption – much of it at the highest levels of government. This is such a problem that countries like the UK, Denmark, Ireland and Norway have all suspended aid to the office of the prime minister.

So in this context, is the issue actually that Uganda doesn’t have enough funds to promise to feed its people, or is it that the funds are being improperly allocated?

It blows my mind that sitting in the Ugandan parliament a well-educated constitutional lawyer would seriously say that Uganda can’t find money to feed its people, and not a single MP would speak up to disagree with him. Isn’t food the most important right of all? Moreover, isn’t Uganda called the food basket of East Africa? Food Rights Alliance lives by the slogan “food first, everything later”. Sitting in that meeting I could barely think because I was so hungry, and I had eaten a mere six hours before. Yet only a few kilometers away there were people who hadn’t eaten in days. In his casual dismissal of the right to food due to budgetary restrictions, the chairman was saying that these people’s needs aren’t even a priority. In Uganda’s Vision 2040 the aim is for the country to go from a low to middle income country by 2040. But how do they expect to meet this goal if they won’t give people the right to food? How can they expect people to survive – let alone contribute to the economy – if they are starving? And moreover, how can a panel of presumably smart, compassionate people seriously refuse to even TRY to feed the country they took responsibility for?

Even though my hunger that day was eventually abated by a few much needed veggie samosas, it seems unlikely that the people of Uganda will have the same luck. At the beginning of the meeting the chairman joked that because we were skipping lunch we were fasting for the constitution. But in the context of his dismissal of the Ugandan people’s right to food, I doubt he understood the irony of his words.

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NOTE: Although what I’ve described in my post is shocking, it is not uncommon for countries to fail to allocate enough of the budget to the direct benefit of its people. So called “developed” countries are often equally at fault for similarly harmful decisions.

“The World is Round” – Part 2

May 27th 2015

After a few action packed days at work, I’m back! I have so many updates to share, but first let me continue my lengthy, somewhat dry musings steeped in IDS terminology (apologies in advance).

To summarize where I left off in the last post, I was talking about privilege. Here in Uganda I am acutely aware of the preferential treatment I receive because I am a mzungu*. Even in Canada I am aware that my very comfortable life comes at the expense of the wellbeing of people in far off places, as well as at home. So although I cannot take responsibility for past harms like colonialism, I can acknowledge the consequences of my current actions. In my favorite childhood movie called Ever After – a rendition of Cinderella featuring a young Drew Barrymore – Barrymore’s sassy character tells the prince that he was “born to privilege, and with that comes specific obligations”. Although my life is unfortunately very far from the fairy tale world in the movie, this particular line is very relevant to reality. The privilege I was born into comes with the responsibility to act conscientiously and do what small part I can to improve the condition of the world (queue inspirational music).

Now, time for some development theory that I think is relevant (although I’ll leave that for you to decide, if you can stay awake until the end):

In historian W.E.H Lecky’s 1869 book A History of European Morals he introduced the concept of The Expanding Circle. The Expanding Circle theorizes that “the number of people we consider worthy of our moral consideration has expanded through history, like a circle”. At one time people only cared about their immediate family, but overtime the circle expanded to include a class, then a nation, and finally all of humanity**. Lecky argues that throughout history more and more people have gone from being The Other to being part of a collective Us. This is why we see countries sending humanitarian aid to other nations in far off places. As my co-worker S said, “the world is round”. Overtime humanity’s compassion for each other has expanded to include the whole world.

At least in theory.

Now let me turn to a different but closely connected topic. Australian philosopher Peter Singer has a popular ethical metaphor called The Drowning Child. Although I disagree with many of his arguments about charity and development, this particular metaphor is relevant to the idea that we have a moral responsibility to humankind. So let me walk you through it:

Imagine that on your way to work or school you pass a shallow pond. One day you see that there is a child drowning in that pond. It would be easy for you to save that child and you would incur no harm to yourself. However your clothes would be ruined and you would be late for your daily activities. The question is, do you have an obligation to save that child?

The answer is obviously a resounding yes. The child’s safety far outweighs the cost of ruining your clothes and being late. Even if there are other people walking by who have just as much agency to save the child, this doesn’t lessen the responsibility you have to do so.*** But now let us change the scenario slightly. What if the child who needs saving is far away, say in a different country? It is equally within your means to save them, with negligible cost to yourself. Most people would say that distance and nationality should make little difference, and they would still choose to save the child. I know I would. But now let us add one final layer to Singer’s metaphor. What if we are not only able to save the child drowning in the pond, but what if we actually had a role in how they ended up there in the first place? Wouldn’t that multiply our responsibility to save them by a hundredfold? I think it would, and does.

Andrew Linklater discusses a variation of this phenomenon in one of his articles when he reconceptualises foreign aid as justice. He gives the example of aid given by Britain to Mozambique after they experienced a flood. The world saw Britain as a charitable, caring nation to take such actions. However, what people failed to realize was that Britain had been responsible for some of the deforestation in Mozambique that contributed to the severity of the flooding. So were they being charitable, or were they simply addressing the consequences of their actions? Not to sound like a broken record, but the world is round. Countries should not be meeting their aid targets of 0.7% of their GDP – which by the way most of them aren’t – simply so that they can feel warm and fuzzy inside. They should be doing so because they have a moral responsibility to address the results that their actions have on the world. In his writings, John Rawls uses a thought experiment called the Veil of Ignorance. He imagines that people have to create society from behind a veil where they are unaware of what their position, race, or tastes will be. From this position, he argues that people would choose to maximize the benefit for the least fortunate in society, because they may find themselves in that position. Unfortunately however, in reality we cannot pause and recreate society from behind that veil. In the world’s current state, we must try to maximize the benefit for the least fortunate starting from a situation of gross inequality.

Alright, I’ll stop there.

So far this post has been very theoretical, so let me now ground it in my current experiences here in Uganda. As a visitor in this country, I can’t help but wonder what I can do to better the situation around me. The Canadian International Development Agency, aka CIDA (RIP), used to fund organizations like Canada World Youth that would send Canadian students on experiential learning programs abroad. The costs of these programs were included in the annual budget for foreign aid. Similarly, I am here in Uganda because the government is funding me as part of their development strategy. So both for my own peace of mind and to best utilize the government’s money, I can’t help but want to have the most positive impact here that I possibly can. I am a person who likes to help, no matter where I am or who I’m with.

But now for the hard part: what does that helping look like? For the next three months does it mean paying a higher price for things at the market so that the hardworking vendor’s can pocket an extra few shillings? Does it mean giving the children begging on the street a few bills and hoping it doesn’t get taken from them by the people who they report to? I find it hard to believe that my money is all I can give, despite the common assumption here that all mzungu’s are wealthy. I know that I have many valuable things to contribute, but it is hard to identify what they are and how to utilize them. They say that knowledge is power, but I feel like the more I learn about these complex issues of inequality and poverty the more my hands are tied. I want to do the right thing, but the more I learn the more it seems like every option is wrong.

Moreover, how much should I assume that I can realistically do? I am a twenty two year old student who is here in Uganda for three months working as an intern. Despite the preferential treatment I have been given, my power is very limited. In a work setting, anything I have been included in is more for my benefit than for the organization’s. And to play devil’s advocate to my former discussion of cosmopolitanism, why would I assume that it is my responsibility to do anything? When people think of this continent they picture starving children and people dying of HIV/AIDS. The image is one of helplessness. But in the two weeks that I’ve been here this seems so far from the case. People here are alive. They have normal concerns, like what to do on the weekend and whether they are doing a good job at work. As one MP said in a meeting last week: “we have problems, but we are not dying”. There are hundreds of Ugandans working to solve Uganda’s problems, and doing a good job of it considering what they’re up against. So what gives me the right to swoop in and assume that I can do a better job than them? And furthermore, why would I be trying to change a country I barely know, when there are scores of issues back home? It is a neocolonialist idea to think that foreigners can do a better job of solving a country’s problems than the people who have grown up there.

Now here’s another question: why do so many people from the Global North assume that people in the Global South want to be like them? In the GMO meeting last week that I mentioned, a few MPs referenced the issue of obesity in America. They used it as a cautionary tale of what they do not want for Uganda. Interestingly, they talked about obesity with the same tone of fear that we in North America would talk about HIV/AIDS on this continent. Yes, both are pressing health issues. But the media presents us with one angle – mere snippets of a much larger story, presented out of context and coupled with fear tactics. I hate that more often than not media corporations only show the negative side of the equation, because it assumes a lack of agency and flippantly disempowers a continent of people in the eyes of the Global North. It is actively perpetuating stereotypes that I’ve seen firsthand are not necessarily the case.

So, to conclude.

This post has been long and rambling, so if you’ve made it this far I applaud you. When you boil it down, what I’m trying to say is this: I think Lecky’s idea of the Expanding Circle needs to be challenged, at least to some extent. Yes, in theory we feel responsibility for the state of humanity, but in practice we still put up walls and create divides between each other, both at home and abroad. Sometimes we see the drowning child and dive in to save them, but other times we just continue to walk by – if we don’t break the surface of the water than we won’t have to deal with how deep it is. The pond looks shallow: give money to a country in the Global South and you can make a difference. But in reality the issues run much deeper than that. Wanting to help isn’t enough – you have to know how, which is something I’m still trying to figure out. But as Linklater explains, it’s everyone’s responsibility to do so.

It is true that the world is round. But unfortunately, despite my good intentions more often than not I feel like all I am doing is going in circles.
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*A Swahili word that originally meant ‘dazed’ to refer to the confused looks that European settlers had in colonial times. Now however it is used to refer to white people – we hear it at least five times a day. It is not meant in a negative way, but merely as a way to identify us.
**One argument is that we are now expanding to include the whole animal kingdom. Therefore The Expanding Circle argument is often used by animal rights activists.
***However what may occur in this case is a collective action problem when everyone expects someone else to act and therefore no one does. But that’s getting off topic.

“The World is Round” – Part 1

May 24th 2015

Zig Ziglar once said, “Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile, and a grateful heart”. Since arriving in Uganda, everyone I’ve met has given the two former things and much more, while in return I have given the latter. In many cases people here have devoted their time and their energy to ensure that we feel safe, comfortable, and welcomed. This weekend was no exception: on Friday night a co-worker invited us out to a bar to hear some Ugandan music. Over Nile beers (delicious) and a few games of pool (we lost), we talked about music, relationships, gender equality, and Uganda’s laws against homosexuality. This morning the same co-worker picked us up at 6:30am to attend church at his local parish. The church was a large brick structure with narrow wooden benches – a simple space with just the necessities, but our voices quickly filled it with music as we sang the many hymns that Jeremy, Shelby and I struggled to follow. Afterwards our co-worker, S, took us back to his home and fed us tea and sandwiches while his young nephews ran around in the background. There was a constant flow of cousins, brothers and sisters in and out of the house, which added to the atmosphere of warmth and closeness that enveloped the neighborhood. From what I could tell it was the ultimate example of a close knit community. When we left, S gave us each an avocado picked from the tree outside and invited us back next weekend.

The whole experience reminded me of something S had said at the bar on Friday when we’d thanked him for being so welcoming. He told us that his father would always say “the world is round”. It is a sentiment akin to karma, or the phrase “what goes around comes around”: the idea that your actions now will inspire similar actions in the future. To me it also seems to embody the closeness between people that we somehow rarely feel. The world is round meaning that it is contained, and we are all part of the same cycle. Maybe it sounds cheesy, but that quote stuck with me, as will our experiences today.

Now onto a heavier topic: let’s talk about privilege. It’s something that I’ve been acutely aware of since arriving in Uganda. No one in the top economic and social percentiles of the world’s population can ever truly ignore it, but often privilege is merely one small thread in the midst of a tumult of other thoughts and concerns in peoples’ daily lives. For example, when passing by a homeless person on the street you may briefly have the thought “I’m glad that isn’t me” – but that is quickly replaced by lists of errands or other irrelevant to dos. Here though, faced with a constant stream of good wishes from people like S, I can’t help but wonder what we’ve done to deserve this? Not to be cynical, but people here don’t know us, so they have no reason to be so open and helpful.

That said, I do believe that the reason people here are so friendly has very little to do with who we are and instead a lot to do with the quality of their characters’. From our boda driver who always picks us up with a big handshake and an exuberant smile, to the owner of the guesthouse who calls a few times a week to make sure we’re ok; the Ugandans who we have come into contact with are generally just good people. But while this weekend’s events occurred because Ugandans are inclined to be friendly and welcoming, there have also been many times in the past week or so when we’ve received preferential treatment. And yes, to put it bluntly it is because of the perceived privilege that comes with having white skin.

I’d like to stop here and take a minute to say a few things: Race is a sensitive topic, so I apologize if I manhandle it in the next few paragraphs in an effort to sort out what I think. In a world of political correctness there are so many pitfalls that can quickly label you as racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. Sometimes the simple misuse of a word can overshadow your good intentions. So please know that these next few paragraphs are well intended and are written in an effort to give an honest account of my experience here so far. There are some tough questions that I’ve been asking myself lately – things that I am mulling over and have not necessarily come to terms with fully yet. What follows is just my attempt to reconcile them internally, and now externally to you.

So to continue: Jeremy, Shelby and I are a visible minority here. As Caucasians, there are associations connected to the colour of our skin. It is because of this that half the congregation came up to shake our hands after church today. It is the same reason why on our third day of work we were privy to a meeting with members of parliament to discuss the proposed GMO bill (more on that later). Now one could argue that this latter example happened because we won a prestigious scholarship that has allowed us to travel here and work for an NGO, and as an intern at said NGO a meeting with MPs is part of the parcel. But I don’t think it’s that simple. For instance, the only reason we won the scholarship was because we (and our parents) had the means to send us to a good university. I was raised in a comfortable, well off setting, and because of that, this scholarship and many other opportunities have made themselves available to me. I recognize that this privilege is something I have that many others don’t.

As someone who wants to fix things, I struggle with this privilege because I don’t think the solution is for me to feel guilty for a position in life that I was born into. I could just as easily have been born to a poor rural Ugandan farmer instead of a middle class Canadian couple (bear with me here). Similarly, there is a long history of colonialism on this continent, all enforced by people who I happen to share a skin colour with. Although some people may disagree with the following statement, I don’t think it would be productive for me to feel personally guilty about what people who share my skin colour have done. However, knowing that I had no say in what men and women with whom I share small amounts of DNA did a few hundred years ago is different than ignoring the fact that it happened. Whether it is fair or not, there is a history that I represent because of the colour of my skin. And whether I feel direct responsibility for that history or not, I must acknowledge the underlying power dynamics that it has created.

Furthermore, while I may have had no control over colonialism, I am responsible for my actions now. One of the things that I’ve learned in my four years at university is that my relative wealth and happiness comes at a cost. Unfortunately, in its current state the world is zero sum – for one to win another must lose. I don’t believe it has to be this way, but right now my lifestyle in Canada exists because there is exploitation elsewhere in the world. Child labour allows me to buy clothing very cheaply, and my old laptop will probably be shipped to a country in the Global South where it will leak toxins into someone’s drinking water. As S said, the world is round. My actions in Canada affect people halfway across the world, and without knowing it I have the power to harm someone I’ve never met. Not to sound preachy, but whether we like it or not we have some measure of responsibility in the inequality that our lifestyles perpetuate. And although that’s a hard pill to swallow, it’s much easier than being on the other end of the equation.
(To be continued)