Coming to northern Uganda to volunteer with Peace For All International (www.peaceforallinternational.org) as part of a six-month internship, I presumed I would be another eager foreigner trying to use my skills in a sea of NGOs. To be honest, I think I came here partially hoping that I would be able to learn from other more experienced workers, learn how to become a more effect aid worker. Given that the region had been in violent conflict for over 22 years, surely there would be hundreds of NGOs, I thought.

Pulling into Pader District in May 2009 on the local bus, I began to wonder if my preconceived notions might have contained a few errors. Most of the NGO placards and signs that are ubiquitous to conflict/post-conflict areas and lined the roads as I entered, were either very old, falling down or had obviously been recently removed. By the time the bus had sped through the outlying villages and come to an abrupt, dusty stop in the centre of town, I had counted only one NGO office passed, and that was a small local Ugandan NGO.

Where were all the big NGOs?

Until 2006, there were literally hundreds of international NGOs in Pader, Gulu, Kitgum and Lira Districts (previously just one district), but in 2006, the government defence force (UPDF) declared the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) no longer a threat in Uganda (the LRA had been pushed into the DR Congo and was engaging, albeit loosely, in a form of peace talks in Juba). The emergency was now over. People were told to leave the Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camps and return to their villages. Hands were shaken and lots of success stories were written. NGOs began packing up their belongings and heading north to Sudan where an emergency was still unfolding. Donor money followed them, and the people of districts like Pader, the people who bore some of the worst effects of the conflict, were left struggling to rebuild themselves mostly on their own after 22 years of terror, and in many cases 22 years of relying on donors.

It can be argued that the post-conflict phase is probably the most critical, and perhaps the point when even more NGOs are needed. It’s the time when regions are tenuously balancing on the edge, when if psychosocial and structural issues like extreme poverty, domestic violence and idleness/redundancy are not addressed, the community will most likely slide back into conflict. People who are hungry and have recently only known violence as the means of solving conflict are probably pretty unlikely to quickly and naturally gravitate towards peaceful means of solving disputes, particularly when the population includes a large number of bored, hopeless-feeling youth. These are all issues, however that can’t be quickly fixed. They take focused, long-term interventions such as peacebuilding, leadership and vocational training. They take many years of rebuilding disrupted networks of communities.

I am really proud of Peace For All International for deciding to come in to northern Uganda when others were leaving. To me that shows more of a long-term, well thought out planning process. While I know they are struggling to get funding for their projects (all the major funders keep asking them to switch to Sudan), I am also confident that their team of dedicated staff will persevere and stick with the people of Pader until they are back on their feet again.

…so I guess in the end I have learned from, or rather in some cases in spite of other, more experienced aid workers. I have learned that we need to pay more attention to post-conflict reconstruction.

For more by Bruce, visit his personal blog: www.randommusingsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com

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