Background
For two decades, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) perpetrated massacres and mutilations in northern Uganda, southern Sudan, eastern DR Congo and more recently, in Central African Republic. The violence displaced 1.8 million people with tens of thousands of civilians killed and kidnapped.

The LRA and the government of Uganda signed a truce in 2006 aimed at ending the long-running conflict. Since then, the security situation has gradually improved in the country, but excluding the Karamoja region bordering Kenya, where armed violence still continues, fuelled by tribal tensions and a history of cattle-rustling.

Karamoja, with its small arms death rate approaching 600 per 100,000 of the population, is one of the world’s most armed violence-afflicted regions. Since the 1970s, cattle raids have escalated in lethality with the proliferation of modern assault rifles. A commensurate rise in armed crime, in which acts of violence are increasingly orchestrated irrespective of community norms on the use of force, has severely impaired the region’s socio-economic development. To address the challenges in Karamoja, the Ugandan government has established the Karamoja Integrated Disarmament & Development Plan, and Karamoja Action Plan for Food Security.

The Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF), other government security agencies and the LRA all used landmines and ammunition over the course of the civil war. The unpredictable occurrence of unexploded ordnance in particular, has increased the safety concerns among the large population of now returning internally displaced persons.

The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) has been mandated to provide a land-release mechanism, covering suspected hazardous areas and areas of return and recovery. To date, a majority of these areas have been cleared of explosive ordnance and released to the use of local populations. The OPM estimates that the national mine-clearance operation will be completed in mid 2012, with explosive ordnance disposal operations continuing until 2014.

Mine action
Since 2008, DDG has operated within the National Mine Action Programme that is mandated to facilitate a safe environment by addressing the landmine/unexploded ordnance contamination, educating communities and assisting victims of war. Partnering with the OPM, DDG builds capacity within the Uganda Mine Action Centre (UMAC) that comprises 130 seconded specialist personnel from the Uganda People’s Defence Force and the police. In this framework, DDG provides UMAC with Mine Action technical advisory, management and material support, training, and quality and information management.

Community safety
Besides facilitation of mine action at the national level, DDG’s strategy in Uganda entails addressing the challenge of armed violence in Karamoja; the agents, sources and tools. Accordingly, DDG applies top-down (national-level arms control, stockpile management and accountability measures) and bottom-up (community safety and livelihoods) approaches to reduce armed violence and proliferation of small arms, while coordinating with agencies across the borders to South Sudan, Kenya and DR Congo.

In 2010, DDG, together with the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), launched a combined Community Safety and Livelihoods programme in Karamoja region bordering Kenya and Sudan. Today, this programme has expanded from Moroto district to the districts of Napak, Kotido and Nakapiripirit covering most of the border area between the three countries; bringing together communities, security providers and law enforcement to reduce armed violence. The activity portfolio targets both communities and security providers alike, entailing community safety planning, conflict management education, small arms sensitisation, awareness raising and advocacy messages through radio drama shows, and facilitation of regular meetings between security providers from UPDF and the police, and the local population.

Impact
An impact assessment of the DDG Community Safety programme in Karamoja from September 2011 showed good results:

Reduced violence and conflict

• Increase from 27% to 91% in people who say that the level of armed violence in their community has reduced compared to one year ago
• Increase from 55% to 67% in people with no security concerns
• 67% of community members find that DDG’s conflict management education has reduced conflict in their community

Improved security provision and conflict management

• More than 30% increase in community rating of trust in, and efficiency of, police
• 76% increase in community rating of police accessibility
• 86% of community members find that conflict management has improved in their community after DDG’s interventions

Reduced threats from small arms and light weapons

• Reduction from 29% to 11% in firearms-related accidents
• Reduction from 66% to 36% in people who worry about small arms accidents