In the name of development": Indigenous resources management in irrigation schemes

Abstract

Large-scale irrigation started in Uganda in the 1970s. In post-conflict northern Uganda, irrigation schemes in the Olweny Swamps, Lango region and in the Agoro Hills, Acholi region reflect strong strategic issues. Coupled with technocratic and top-down implementation, they aim at creating new territories focusing on rice production. This paper uses the institutional change approach developed by Tobias Häller to analyse changes induced by those irrigation schemes on indigenous resources management in a wide historical context. In both cases, sustainability of resources management seems to have been weakened by various degrees. This is as a result of not only the project itself but also from the disruption of indigenous institutions, initiated since colonialism and reflected by distinct postwar coping dynamics. Indeed it turned out that disruption impacts vary according to local context, even in regions often said to share high degrees of historical, cultural, and environmental homogeneity by international donors as well as government agencies.