Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are calling on the government of Uganda to strengthen its working relationship with development partners as a way of boosting fair and responsible local and foreign investment in the country. 

The Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) say that the current investment environment is not conducive especially to the local communities because related laws are not in tandem with the international responsible investment protocols. 

Some of the protocols not aligned with the Ugandan laws include the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) and the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (CFS-RAI), as well as national frameworks. 

These frameworks call for the promotion of secure tenure land rights and equitable access to land, fisheries and forests as a means of eradicating hunger and poverty and supporting sustainable development. 

The concern about the imbalance between the Ugandans laws and the protocols was raised during a training meeting of Gomba District Local Government on the use of the Investment Compliance Monitoring Tool. 

The training was organized by the Eastern and Sothern Africa Small-scale Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF) Uganda in partnership with the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) and the Germany Agency for Development (GIZ). 

Building capacity in Gomba district 

The meeting was aimed at building the capacity of Gomba District Local Government departments in using the Investor Compliance Monitoring Tool to track data collection, data analysis, data presentation and reporting.

The tools will also support Gomba in making formal discussions and guidance to promote responsible investments in the district to realize the right to adequate food in the context of national food security, human rights, and poverty eradication among others. 

Ronald Bagaga, the Policy and Research Officer at ESAFF, said there's a need for the government to come up with investment policies that support the interest of smallholder farmers. He said that on most occasions smallholder farmers have been affected when it comes to allocating land for investments to investors.

"The government should also have in mind that local communities need land, especially for agricultural production. Without respecting their interests, this will affect their livelihoods since they depend on land as a natural resource to earn a living" Bagaga said.  

It's on this background that ESAFF and partners conducted the capacity building training where ten Gomba district local government officials were skilled in the use of the Investor Compliance Monitoring Tool.

The training attracted the district economic physical planner, agricultural officers, lands officers, environmental officers, district commercial development officers and the Chief Administrative Officer. 

It promoted responsible investment governance with a focus on agriculture and food systems that contribute to food security and nutrition.

ESAFF, GIZ commended for innovation 

In the training, the District Commercial Development Office of Gomba Kawalya Morgan commended GIZ and ESAFF for coming up with the tool which guides them when it comes to the allocation of land for investment. 

Daniel Kirumira from GIZ promised Gomba that ESAFF will avail them with a computer system on which the ICMT Tool will be installed. He said the system will entirely be managed by the district to lower the fear of data insecurity.

He asserted that the entire process is to be managed by the district right from data collection, analysis and reporting and the district will have full control over the data 

"The tool will make sure that the district can conduct investor compliance monitoring. The tool will support the district have a record of responsible and non-compliant investors within the district and keep track of investments within the district,” he said. 

He also said the tool will support the district to identify areas where different investors require capacity building and ultimately informs them of policies that need to be raised/revised. 

Gomba is an example

After the training, ESAFF and GIZ decided to support Gomba with a workstation for monitoring investments in the district and facilitating district officials during data collection from identified investments. 

The intention is to ensure that the local government can be a learning centre and point of reference for other Local Governments across the country in monitoring investments in their districts. 

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN), agricultural, investments in Africa have a massive social and economic footprint. 

More than 60% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is smallholder farmers, and about 23% of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP comes from agricultural investment practices.

In the same way, the economies and livelihoods of citizens in East Africa are predominantly dependent on agricultural investments. The sector accounts for 25%-40% of EAC Partner States (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Republic of South Sudan) Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Agriculture is the leading employer of over 80% of the population in the region. More than 70% of the industries in the EAC are agro-based and depend on agriculture as the main source of raw materials. Agricultural commodities constitute about 65% of the volume of intra-regional trade in the EAC.

In Uganda, Uganda Investments Authority (UIA) estimates Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to increase from 3.68% to 5% and the Domestic Direct Investment to increase from 24.5% to 50% by 2025.  

The government of Uganda established UIA as an entity responsible for monitoring and tracking all investments made in the country as guided by the investment code of Uganda.  

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) subscribing to the Save Bugoma Forest Campaign (SBFC) have written to the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) requesting for a copy of the approved restoration plan for Bugoma Central Forest Reserve (CFR).

The SBFC, an umbrella body, is made up of the forest host communities, civil society and private sector entities whose main objective is to defend Bugoma CFR located in Kikuube district in Western Uganda from land grabbing, sugarcane growing and oil threats.

In a press statement released as part of their activities to mark World Environment Dat, the SBFC also wants NEMA and the National Forestry Authority (NFA) to ensure that Hoima Sugar Limited (HSL) halts all its destructive activities in Bugoma CFR and restores the forest.

Save Bugoma Forest Campaign campaigners fault NEMA for authorizing Hoima Sugar activities in Bugoma forest in August 2020 by issuing an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA).

 With the approval from NEMA, Hoima Sugar set up a sugarcane plantation on 9.24sq. miles, developed an urban centre on 1.206 sq. miles, set up an ecotourism site on 1.97 sq. miles, land for a cultural site covering 0.156 sq. miles; and left a natural forested area and set up nature trails on 6.17 sq. miles.

"While NEMA allowed HSL to grow sugarcane in some parts of Bugoma forest, reports by the SBFC in January 2021 and investigations by NEMA in September 2022 showed that the company had grown sugarcane in the area reserved for ecotourism purposes. The area reserved for natural forested purposes was also degraded," the statement from SBFC revealed.

Dickens Kamugisha, the chairperson of the SBFC, said that while the forest host communities and the public are highly interested in the restoration of Bugoma forest, NEMA has not publicly shared the restoration plan that Hoima Sugar submitted to them. 

Hassan Mugenyi, the chairperson of the SBFC local task force adds, “We do not know if any restoration plan for Bugoma exists. If it does, we were not consulted on it yet as people who have lived near Bugoma forest for a long time and have enjoyed benefits from the forest, we are interested in the conservation of the forest. We can also share information to inform restoration of the forest.”

The SBFC now recommends that NEMA should publicly share a copy of the approved restoration plan for Bugoma forest by HSL, stop the ongoing destruction of Bugoma forest and that the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development (MLHUD) makes public the boundary opening report of Bugoma forest.

The recommendation is that government should ensure that the conservation of Bugoma forest is promoted under the Forest Partnership that the government signed with the European Union

in November 2022 and that  Bugoma forest should be turned into a national park to better conserve the forest and protect the environment.

In recent times, most especially after the signing of the Final Investment Decision (FID) in February this year, government agencies and personalities intensified efforts to promote, protect and make a case for Uganda's premier oil and gas infrastructure project, the East African Crude Pipeline. 

A campaign codenamed Support EACOP was rolled out to counter Stop EACOP, a campaign which over the years has been traded by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) that look at the $3.5bn Pipeline as a climate change facilitator by potentially emitting over 34 million tons of CO2 emissions every single year. 

According to revised plans, the Pipeline construction is scheduled to start in 2023 and be ready in 2025 when Uganda will realize First Oil.

The 1444km pipeline will carry crude oil from Hoima in western Uganda to the Tanzanian port of Tanga where it will be shipped to the international market. The EACOP project developers are TotalEnergies (62%), the Ugandan and Tanzanian governments (15% each) and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (8%). 

The pipeline, which will be the longest electrically-heated crude oil pipeline in the world, will transport 216,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the Tilenga and Kingfisher oil fields. Apart from carrying the Ugandan waxy black gold and the subsequent revenue, it will give Uganda, the Pipeline development will create hundreds of jobs and offer numerous business opportunities to Ugandans and Tanzanians. 

The snaking infrastructure, like the ongoing Support EACOP & Stop EACOP debate, has positive and negative sides. 

FIGHTING TO ‘STOP’ & ‘SUPPORT’ EACOP

The government and the International Oil Companies (IOCs) had for the long haul ignored the anti-fossil fuels campaigners to go on with the EACOP smear campaign until now. The environmentalists, local and international organizations and individuals called on the government to abandon the multibillion-dollar project. 

On seeing that the government was not yielding, they turned their focus on the potential financiers of the Pipeline like banks and insurance companies. And indeed they managed to get some American and European banks to back off and indicate that they cannot fund the project because of the risks it poses to the environment and its contribution to climate change. Financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and others have ruled out any financing role. Insurance heavyweights Munich Re, Allianz, Axa and Beazley will not provide any cover. TotalEnergies has not come out to address this matter but their operations in Uganda have remained steady. 

In an interview with Daily Monitor, Mr. Peter Muliisa, the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) Chief Legal and Corporate Affairs Officer said they have 'entities from Europe, from Asia and all over the world willing to finance EACOP. He told the newspaper that they will be able to announce the chosen financiers in July. According to the Center for International Environment Law, Japanese Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) is acting as financial advisor to TotalEnergies in a deal that will see a yet-to-be-named Japanese bank bankroll the transboundary project. TotalEnergies by proximity to CNOOC is also said to be considering going to China in search of a capable financier.

POPULAR GLOBAL ENERGY TRANSITION MOVEMENT 

The global conversation regarding the energy transition that will see the world move on from fossil fuels to clean energy put projects like the EACOP in a difficult position and developing countries like Uganda set to adversely be affected by this transition are putting up a fight. 

These poor countries want to extract oil and gas at any cost. And with the financial backing of international companies, as we are seeing in Uganda, the developing countries will proceed to harvest the hydrocarbons as they keenly observe the clean green energy game so that they don’t miss out on anything. 

In Uganda, there is the political will for the country to extract the hydrocarbons from the ground, refine them for the domestic market and export the rest to the international market which is the part where the EACOP comes in. 

But to achieve this, Uganda has to deal with local CSOs that have the backing and influence of their counterparts from the West. They want Uganda to abort its mission of extracting its oil and join the energy transition trend swaying into the renewable and green energy side.  

The anti-EACOP campaigners in Uganda led by Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), a CSO leading 13 others on his cause, argues that the EACOP project poses immense social, economic, environmental, and biodiversity and climate change risks. The CSOs alert that these risks are set to, directly and indirectly, affect forests, national parks, game reserves, lakes, rivers, wetlands and others in Uganda and Tanzania.

BIODIVERSITY RISKS RAISED

AFIEGO, quoting a 2017 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report reveals that the EACOP will affect 2,000km of protected areas and will fragment habitats for elephants, chimpanzees and other endangered animals in protected areas like Bugoma, Wambabya and Taala forests in Uganda as well as Minziro Nature Forest Reserve and Burigi-Biharamulo Game Reserve in Tanzania.

It is also believed that the EACOP is set to affect wetlands belonging to Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika as well as the Wami/Ruvu and Pagani basins. Other wetland systems that are likely to be impacted include the Sango Bay-Musambwa Island, Nabajjuzi and Lake Nabugabo, Mabamba Bay, Lutembe bay and others.

The conservationists say that the pipeline poses a great risk to the rich biodiversity – the forests, game reserves, lakes, wetlands and other protected areas which are habitats for internationally-recognized endangered species. Bugoma forest in Uganda hosts over 600 chimpanzees or 12% of Uganda’s chimpanzee population; the wetland systems are important bird areas for both migratory and other bird species.

Some of the social impacts include the possibility of EACOP affecting a total of 13,000 households in Uganda and Tanzania. These households are losing land, houses, homes and a way of life. 

As they waited for compensation, the Project Affected Persons were stopped from using their land to grow perennial food and cash crops leading to food scarcity, reduced family incomes, psychosocial distress, school drop-outs, and abuse of their cultural rights and others. 

In the long-term, community and public expenditure on health, climate change crises and others could increase because of the EACOP. Air pollution, oil spills and others will worsen community health.

ALL IS WELL – GOVERNMENT, OIL COMPANIES SAY

Despite all these fears being raised by the CSOs, the EACOP project, like the other oil projects will go ahead as planned with the full blessings of the government including well-received approvals from the National Environment Management Authority which supervises and certifies all Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) conducted before any project commences. The EACOP, after a rigorous ESIA exercise, was okayed by NEMA and will proceed. Internally, the IOCs, TotalEnergies and CNOOC Uganda, base their and international based. 

TotalEnergies recently launched the Tilenga Biodiversity Program, an initiative aimed at protecting and conserving biodiversity in and around the Tilenga project area. This gesture has been looked at as evidence and commitment from TotalEnergies indicating that prioritizing nature was top of the company’s agenda.

Mr. Philippe Groueix, the General Manager of TotalEnergies, said they are mindful of the sensitive context within which they are undertaking their activities. "We have thus committed to ensuring that we implement action plans designed to produce a net positive impact on biodiversity. The biodiversity program will ensure a sustainable approach in working with the community towards protecting and conserving the ecologically rich area.”

Speaking at the 3rd National Local Content Conference Ms. Pauline Macronald, the Environment & Biodiversity Manager at TotalEnergies said the company strives to manage the environmental effects of all its projects & operations according to the Mitigation Hierarchy principles of avoidance, minimization, restoration & offsetting. 

To enhance Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services, Ms. Macronald, revealed that TotalEnergies has partnered with NEMA, National Forestry Authority, Ministry of Water, ECOTRUST, Uganda Wildlife, Petroleum Authority and Wildlife Conservation Society to ensure a positive impact on wildlife & communities. 

Mr. John B. Habumugisha the Deputy Managing Director of EACOP Limited, a company that was formed to do business, discussing Environment and Social Governance elaborated that as a company, they continue to insist that anything they do around EACOP must be stringently compliant to the environmental and Social requirements. "In terms of the environment, we have avoided most of the sensitive areas & the design levels are stringent. Our system ensures that we don't have issues of spillage," said Mr. Habumugisha.

The Petroleum Authority of Uganda, the industry regulator, has fully backed the project saying that IOCs have done the necessary due diligence to ensure the safe production and transportation of oil through EACOP. Dr Joseph Kobusheshe the Director HSE at Petroleum Authority explained that Environment and Social Governance has become an important measure of sustainability.

THE WORLD, ESPECIALLY AFRICA, STILL NEEDS OIL & GAS  

The emergence of the pumped-up Support EACOP agenda knocking out Stop EACOP with verve reignited a public debate on what is the right thing to do. This debate also came at a time when the war in Eastern Europe between Ukraine and Russia was causing a scarcity of crude oil and sky-rocketing fuel prices globally. 

The war and the subsequent sanctions by the EU and partners on Russia created a scarcity of Natural Liquefied Gas. These scarcities and the outcry that resulted somehow underscored the fact that fossil fuels still drive the day-to-day lives of people across the world and that the world cannot afford to live without them. 

In a highly publicized article, President Yoweri Museveni May this year described efforts by developed countries to impose a moratorium on fossil fuel investment across the world as 'misguided'. President Museveni explained that due to the highly increasing population in Uganda, renewables cannot 'deliver the base load required to boost manufacturing or industrialize agriculture -- crucial for Africa in the wake of the pandemic.'

"In light of the Ukraine war, the West, too, would do well to consider a policy change -- and initiatives like the Lake Albert basin oil project may form part of the answer. By investing in oil and gas deposits in friendly nations such as Uganda, Europe could decrease its reliance on hostile nations." President Museveni penned. 

President Museveni's argument is shared by many industry players on the African continent. They argue that with Africa's socioeconomic development hinging on the exploitation of the continent's oil and gas resources, this ‘hypocrisy’ by already developed countries in the West could spell a travesty for Africa.

Mr. Leoncio Amada Nze, the president of the African Energy Chamber questions 'how is it that Africa must decarbonize while Europe continues to industrialize.' He says: “We deserve to develop our oil and gas to make energy poverty history. In 2022, Africa needs to ramp up its licensing rounds, drive exploration and position itself as the primary supplier for domestic and global markets." With over 600 million people without access to electricity, Africa cannot and should not leave its oil and gas resources in the ground, he adds.