Can the ICGLR IDP Protocol Help Reduce the Impact of Development-Induced Displacement in Uganda?
Refugee Rights News
February 2009
Although refugees receive international protection and help under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its
1967 Protocol, states are not under the same legal obligations to protect and assist internally displaced
persons (IDPs), people who have been forced to flee their homes but have not crossed an international
border. It is national governments, therefore, which have the primary responsibility for the security and wellbeing
of all displaced people on their territory, but often they are unable or unwilling to live up to this duty.
A new legal instrument which has come into force in the Great Lakes region is the first legally binding effort
to mend this weakness in the international framework. The International Conference of the Great Lakes’
(ICGLR) Protocol on the Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP Protocol) has
been agreed by eleven states in the Great Lakes region1 with the objective of ensuring legal protection of
the physical safety and material needs of IDPs in accordance with the United Nation’s 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.
Non-Conflict IDPs: An Often Forgotten Group
The IDP Protocol is also progressive in that it addresses a group of IDPs who are often forgotten in
discussions on displacement – non-conflict IDPs, including those displaced by development. Non-conflict
IDPs are individuals displaced by factors other than armed conflict, for example developmental projects,
natural disasters and climate change.
The IDP Protocol includes a particular focus on handling displacement due to development projects and
natural disasters. It commits member states to prevent and eliminate the root causes of displacement and
to give attention and care to those displaced no matter the cause of displacement. The Protocol was signed
in Nairobi in December 2006 by all eleven Great Lakes states and entered into force in June 2008.
Uganda: The Situation of Non-Conflict IDPs
In Uganda, attention has been focused on the IDPs in northern Uganda displaced by the conflict with the
Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in that region. These IDPs have been encamped for two decades and the
issue of development-induced IDPs has been largely ignored. Development projects that have caused
internal displacement in Uganda include the Bujagali Dam Project and conservation of Bwindi Impenetrable
National Park.
Protecting the Environment at the Expense of the Batwa?
For the past three decades, there has been an expansion of “protected areas,” locations that are protected
due to their environmental value. The growth of protected areas in Africa has been particularly rapid
causing a large number of people who depended on natural resources in those areas to be displaced.
In Uganda, the Bwindi and Mgahinga Forests were established as National Parks in 1991, displacing the
indigenous Batwa people from the forests where they had lived. The government did not give early notice
to the Batwa and did not give compensation or allocate any land. The local council has indicated to Uganda
and the United Organisation for the Batwa Development that 81 acres of land are available for the
resettlement of the Batwa, but negotiations to formalise this arrangement with the government are still
ongoing. The government gives 20% of revenue collected from the tourism to local communities, including
the Batwa, for education and improved health facilities. Unfortunately, the Batwa haven’t benefited from
this.
The Batwa, who number in the thousands, are one of a number of hunter-gatherer peoples collectively
known as the “forest peoples” or “pygmies.” Principle 9 of the Guiding Principles on IDPs pertains
especially to the Batwa and states that all countries are “under a particular obligation to protect against the
displacement of indigenous peoples, minorities, peasants, pastoralists and other groups with a special
dependency on and attachment to their lands.”
As a result of their displacement, the Batwa suffer from a lack of access to education, land, food, health
care and security. The rate of school dropout, for example, is very high. NGOs have provided education for
some Batwa individuals. Sixteen youths have attended secondary school, and one young woman is now in
Bugema University. The United Organisation for the Batwa Development is seeking to build health facilities
and provide land and shelter for the Batwa. The government of Uganda has given the Batwa a small share
of national funds earned through the operation of the national parks. Now that the Protocol is in force,
however, Uganda will have to examine carefully whether it has, in accordance with Article 5 of the Protocol,
taken “all necessary measures” to “mitigate the adverse effects of development induced displacement” in
the case of the Batwa.
The Bujagali Dam
According to the draft final environmental impact assessment conducted in 1999, the construction of the
Bujagali Dam was projected to displace 820 people, and affect an additional 6,000. Despite the fact that
people were given some compensation, some are still seeking help today due to the fact that they are not
satisfied with their new living conditions. Many of those displaced were left permanently poorer as a result
of the project.
The Ugandan government has made some efforts to compensate and relocate residents of areas
surrounding the Bujagali Dam, but it has been reported that some of the people who were moved in 2002
were not given enough compensation. Article 5(5) of the IDP Protocol provides that member states will“provide adequate and habitable sites of relocation and shall ensure to the greatest practicable extent that
proper accommodation is provided to persons displaced by large scale development projects and that their
displacement is effected in satisfactory conditions of safety, nutrition, health and hygiene.”
Going Forward?
With the IDP Protocol in place, it now remains to be seen whether the legal obligations set forth for the
internally displaced will extend to those who may be displaced as a result of development projects in the
future. There are conflicting views, for example, as to whether oil exploration in the western Uganda may
displace those living near Lake Albert. The government of Uganda and civil society will have to pay close
and careful attention to the possible consequences of this development.
1 The eleven states are Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.