A human rights based examination of peace programming in post-conflict reconstruction: the case of NUSAF-III in Budaka, Sironko and Pallisa

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to examine the extent to which human rights based programming approach has been applied to a post-conflict peace building programmes in northern Uganda using the Rights Based Approach. Peace building is a long-term multi-track transformative contribution to social change, helping to create a just and sustainable peace beyond the narrow definition of a post-conflict period. Primary data was collected from households and implementers of the NUSAF program and analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The predominant human rights issues that exist in the community are domestic / family disputes, organized crime, land conflicts and other related issues. Most of the respondents have knowledge of their basic human rights and more than a half of the respondents had knowledge about NUSAF III, engaged in NUSAF III projects and knew about its objectives. However, on the other hand over 50% of the respondents mentioned that their rights had been violated during the implementation of the project with the rights pointed out to have been violated most being the right to work and that of non-discrimination. In regards to the project’s peace building efforts, most of the participants suggested that they were aware of peace building trainings in their community with them mentioning that government agencies are the ones that majorly carried out the trainings in the community and it is the livelihood investment trainings that contributed much to peace building in the community. The study concluded that although the project has played a key role in the realization of gender responsiveness and non-discrimination, it has faced major challenges in achieving transparency and accountability because most of the respondents aren’t aware or are not sure of procedures to express the performance of the project. The study recommends that the government through the Office of the Prime Minister strengthens the measurements of accountability and transparency as well as their awareness among communities in order to better the peace building efforts. Additionally, further research is recommended in regard to the importance of transparency and accountability and their contribution to the peace building process in post-conflict situations.