In Gulu, there was a huge influx of NGO’s and aid money that poured into the region in the early 2000’s, catering especially to the needs of the nearly 1.7 million Ugandans living in Internally Displaced Person camps. In the period after the Cessation of Hostilities agreement was signed between the LRA and the Government of Uganda in 2006, a relative peace has held up to today (unless you are looking at the situation from the point of a Congolese or Southern Sudanese). During this period NGOs continued to grow in number and started moving their services from relief based efforts to more development and resettlement based efforts.
Today, most of the IDP camps have been dismantled, people have rebuilt their lives on their ancestral land, and the camps have closed down, save for a smaller number of very vulnerable populations still residing in camp land (mostly the orphaned, the sick, or the very old). NGOs are now losing their mandate for funding and many are winding up their projects in the Gulu area and heading for new problem areas in South Sudan and the DRC, among other places. Normally, this would be considered a success, but it will probably have a substantial impact on the local Gulu economy. The NGO’s, as the main “white collar” industry, provided a number of good middle class jobs and most likely kept a stable middle class afloat during the last decade in Gulu. In fact, during the last decade, Gulu Town has experienced a sort of economic boom (and quite possibly a bubble) as many multi-story hotels have been built, shops have opened, and Africa’s biggest banks have opened their doors to Gulu residents. By one unofficial count, there were only 2-3 major banks in Gulu Town at the turn of the decade. Now the town boasts over about a dozen, including all of the major banking brands you might find in Kampala or even Nairobi.
There is a lot of debate currently about the usefulness of aid: Does it produce real change? Growth? The data is not really conclusive in either case. And surely aid should attempt to help the most marginalized. But one thing is certain: It provides middle class, professional jobs and helps create a stable, educated middle class that largely, in turn, creates more jobs for other sectors in a local economy. For example, the local development worker with a good salary will spend more money locally on food, entertainment, education, health care, etc, creating more jobs in those industries as well.
The problem, however, is that these jobs don’t last forever, especially if they are provided by large international NGOs who tend to relocate to new problem areas every few years. It would be better, perhaps, if more of the aid could be invested in local, grass-roots development organizations that plan to stay for awhile. I can think of a number of grass-roots organizations that have been around Gulu for years and are not only providing jobs to middle-class locals, but are providing careers. Human Rights Focus, comes to mind as one of these organizations. We set up BOSCO to be run as such an organization, operating within a local structure that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon: the Catholic church. Our Executive Director here is a long-time resident and priest from the north, Fr Joe Okumu. We have made substantial investments in our work here and don’t plan to be going anywhere anytime soon. In that sense, we think that as we grow we are hopefully providing a place that gives local professionals not just a job but a career. That is at least one substantial contribution that we can make.
We are also, of course, hoping that our ICT training in the rural areas prepares undereducated youth with job and communications skills that will one day help them remain employed in their fields of work.
PS: Maybe this argument could also be made more to donors who don’t like to pay for overhead and administrative costs. If we rephrased it as “job creation” costs, maybe more would contribute to non-profit overhead and administrative costs.
Gulu Town viewed from BOSCO tower
