On the team there is Eng. Victor Male the team leader who heads interaction with Artelia. Myself (Gerald Owachi) who coordinates the team members; Dr. Anne Gasasira, Dr. Abby Sebina-Zziwa, Grace Waako, George Bogere, Emmanuel Bizimungu, Judith Asiimwe, Dr. Roger Mpuga, and Brian Baguma (part of the GIS team).
The GIS team is responsible for pin pointing the different key infrastructure within a community that could be economic, social and anything the community defines as infrastructure important to them. For instance as part of the mapping, big trees have been marked as town hall centres where the community gathers to hold meetings with the LC.
There are also sacred places important to the community. Most oil exploration and production facilities cover huge areas and it is necessary to identify places that are important for the community as this will inform discussions on how to ensure that the potential disruption that these facilities might bring are kept to a minimum.
Izine: How did Interface tackle the task and deliverables required of her? What approach was used?
GO: The team is a collection of vastly experienced subject matter and sector specific specialists. We all know the project area very well and had previously conduct studies and analytical work in both Buliisa and Nowya. The experience covered all areas from issues related to land administration and land governance; local and national governance issues; population displacement, forced migration, conflict analysis; community development and livelihoods.
We also fielded a very strong GIS team and had support from very experience research assistants.
Izine: Have there been any obstacles or challenges faced in execution of the assignment? How were these issues addressed?
GO: For 21 days the team was working out of the Tullow Base camp, which reminded many of us of our days in boarding school. We had to leave and return at set times, meal times were set – we had to manage a team of adults within a restricted environment—this was tough.
There was the challenge of tapping into creativity of the team members within the confines of this workspace given. In comparison, the open environment setting for previous studies carried out had helped the team involved then to complete nearly 70 per cent of the report in the field.
Inspite of this, the field report was submitted, vetted and found to be of good quality. The main report is now underway and is an extrapolation of the field report.
Post-field work, there is an issue of coordinating the different team member’s outputs, as they are now all in different places at the moment. Also, most of the members involved in the development of the report were also part of the data collection exercise and this can slow things down a little. That said the report is now near completion.
Izine: Overall, will the assignment result into a positive external impact to the communities and stakeholders involved?
GO: The stakeholders were mainly at village level, i.e. elders, community leaders both from the statutory bodies (LC system, town clerks) social bodies/traditional institutions like the Bunyoro Kingdom, Ke-kwar-acholi and other bodies that the community place a lot of faith in. Interaction was necessary among all those levels to understand the dynamics. There were interactions with youth and women groups as well.
Other interactions were conducted with the authorities, district leadership, the district technical people like the district planner, the district land board, district agricultural officers, district fisheries unit, as well as private NGOs, prominent individuals in the area and even sex workers.
The extent of the expectation by the community is obvious and needs to be managed going forward. People naturally want to know how the oil wealth will trickle down. There were also some grievances about the previous interactions between actors in the oil and gas sector and the community.
However, what we saw isn’t that strange. People are normally very curious about processes that have a potential resource benefit. They want to know how the activities of the oil and gas sector translates into improved community livelihoods. In many places people are also in a state of apprehension, rejection and even resignation. They feel that it is other people, and not them that will enjoy the benefits of oil and gas. They also feel that the concerned bodies are not really hearing the voices of the community.
The extent of the expectation by the community is obvious and needs to be managed going forward. People naturally want to know how the oil wealth will trickle down.