Examining the adherence to good land governance throughout involuntary land acquisition and compensation for infrastructure development in Uganda

Abstract

Every year, millions of people across the world are forcibly displaced by development projects, whether dams, roads, reservoirs or oil, gas, mining and wildlife conservation projects. Although such projects can bring enormous benefits to countries, they also inflict costs, which are every so often borne by its poorest and most marginalized members. Robinson (2003), points out “for millions of people around the world, development has cost them their homes, their livelihoods, their health, and even their very lives.” According to Jason (2003), no precise data exists on the number of people affected by development-induced displacement throughout the world however, for an indication of magnitude, most scholars, policy-makers, and activists rely on the World Bank Environment Department’s (WBED) rough estimate of 10 million people globally being displaced each year due to dam construction, urban development, transportation and infrastructure programs (Cernea, 2000). The UNDP (1997) saw governance as the mechanisms through which citizens and groups could express their interests, enforce their legal rights, meet their obligations, and reconcile their differences. Governance is seen by the FAO (2007) as how the society is managed, by not only formal institutions but also informal arrangements, and the way in which competing interests and priorities of different groups are reconciled. The World Bank (2007) looks at governance as the manner in which public officials and institutions acquire and exercise authority to shape public policy and provide basic goods and services. The three definitions look at governance as including actions such as the acquisition land exercise of power, the process and mechanism used, planning, decision-making and implementation, granting of rights and the fulfilment of obligations.