Partners fighting for rights within natural resource exploration in Uganda
A recent visit to Uganda highlighted the country as the latest example of ethical, environmental and human rights dilemmas brought forth by natural resource exploration.
Under the guise of economic prosperity and energy security, the future of Uganda’s forests, lakes, national parks, and by extension that of the people that depend on these resources, is increasingly endangered. Both ENDS partners in Uganda work with local communities to preserve these natural environments and the livelihoods that come from it.
Kikandwa Environmental Association (KEA), an organization that Both ENDS has worked with, for example, is a community based organization that addresses natural resource management. By mobilizing the community to plant trees, and training them on agroecological practices, KEA has improved food and nutrition security, reduced poverty, and improved soil fertility and biodiversity. Other Both ENDS’ partners we visited in Uganda such as SEATINI, similarly aim to protect Uganda’s natural resources and those using them by tackling unequal trade relations, and economic, social and cultural rights. For example, by addressing women’s right to land, or issues brought by GMO crops.
Displacing communities
Another partner we visited is actively advocating to halt sugar cane companies from cutting a forest that their community relies on for firewood, medicinal plants and income generating products such as honey. Expansion of pine forests for logging, or sugar cane plantations increasingly endanger these forests and displace communities reliant on them. Their successful lobbying has led to a delegation of EU ambassadors visiting the area in 2021 and pledging to secure the boundaries of the forest. This has to date not been done, something that we followed up on during our visit to the Dutch and EU embassies on this trip.
Discovery of oil
One of the newest menaces to Ugandan communities and environment is the discovery of oil, and the building of a pipeline by TotalEnergies to export this oil. EACOP will transport crude oil from the Albertine region in northwest Uganda to Tanga, a port in Tanzania from where it will be exported around the world. The oil drilling and the pipeline threatens biodiversity, water supply and fishing resources for millions of people and displaces thousands of households. It now already leads to human rights violations, especially targeted at activists speaking out against EACOP. Both ENDS is extremely concerned about the shrinking civil space in Uganda, and the safety of our partners and the local communities they work with.
A new Finance Risk Update, published recently in collaboration with Both ENDS also sets out the growing risks of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline to financiers, including banks, insurers and investors.
Traveling with two Both ENDS partners from Nigeria showed that oil exploration in Uganda risks (and in many cases already has) repeating the mistakes that led to widespread environmental devastation and social upheaval caused by oil exploration in the Niger Delta. From land grabs and displacement, to pollution and health hazards, the negative impacts are already profound, with more sure to follow if nothing is done. Local communities, reliant on land for their livelihoods, have borne the brunt of these consequences. Jacob Iniodu, from the Kebetkache Women Development Centre in Nigeria, writes about the parrallels he saw during our trip between Uganda and the Niger delta risks here.
The quest for oil, and exploitation of other natural resources in Uganda underscores the broader dilemma facing the world: the urgent need for a transition to renewable energy sources that are developed together with, and benefit local communities. Uganda is a good candidate for many off-grid renewable energy solutions. Both ENDS partners such as AFIEGO work with their communities to promote these community led solutions already.
“They told us we would get rich, and we would get jobs but instead I lost my home and my land”
Creating change
It is clear that decision makers do not sufficiently take into account the environmental destruction, human rights abuses, and devastation that natural resource exploitation projects have at the local and national level. Through our trip we were able to see the important work that our partners in Uganda do, and bring their stories back to policy makers, investors and donors in the Netherlands. We follow up this trip with new collaborations with partners and new pressure we can put on decision makers.
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Themes
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Publication / 1 July 2016
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Dossier
Uganda’s Energy Future
Despite the existence of many hydropower dams, foreign investments and large government spending on energy, and new plans for hydropower, oil and gas projects, the vast majority of rural Uganda still remains without electricity. Together with our local partners we are striving towards a sustainable energy strategy for Uganda that starts from the needs and wishes of local communities.
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News / 13 December 2023
Response from Both ENDS and OxfamNovib to new FMO climate fund
Both ENDS and Oxfam Novib welcome the new SDG Loan Fund launched by FMO. The fund aims to invest more than a billion euros in loans to small and medium-sized enterprises in low- and middle-income countries, in the energy, inclusive financial services and sustainable agriculture sectors. At the same time, both organisations are concerned about the impact of money from the fund on normal people in future recipient countries.
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Publication / 29 May 2019
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External link / 31 May 2018
Supporting farmer managed natural regeneration to gain ground (Annual Report 2017)
Many people in the desertifying Sahel region have to choose: claim their land back from the desert, or leave their farms behind. In 2017, Both ENDS started a new project here, introducing a method for regreening the landscape: Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). It has proven itself in Niger, where we worked on FMNR for 15 years. By 2017, 15.000 ha of dryland had been regreened.
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Press release / 27 September 2022
Call to Dutch investors: get out of TotalEnergies
Utrecht/Amsterdam, 27 September 2022 - On Wednesday 28 September, Dutch civil society organisations will organise a protest at the offices of oil giant TotalEnergies in The Hague, drawing attention to the problems surrounding the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Uganda. They are calling on investors to get out of TotalEnergies because of this project, which is causing human rights violations and serious environmental pollution. Two weeks ago the European Parliament passed a resolution against the human rights violations linked to EACOP.
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Event / 14 April 2018, 11:30
Small grants, big impacts: workshop on Africa Day
On the 14th of April, Both ENDS wil host a workshop called 'Small Grants, Big Impacts' on the annual Africa day in Amsterdam. The workshop aims to demonstrate that so called 'small grants funds' effectively deliver (devopment and climate) money where it matters, to people that need it the most. Large development banks, funds, donors and governments could use small grants funds as alternative financing mechanisms to make sure their money benefits people and their environment now and it the far future.
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Blog / 27 May 2022
Divest from EACOP before it’s too late
and Abigail Kyomuhendo*
This week the annual shareholder meeting (AGM) of TotalEnergies took place. Whilst the shareholders celebrated their profits, Ugandan people were being evicted from their lands, thousands of kilometers away, for Total's East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). -
Dossier
Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA)
GAGGA rallies the collective power of the women's rights and environmental justice movements to realize a world where women can and do access their rights to water, food security, and a clean, healthy and safe environment.
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Dossier
Fair Green and Global Alliance (FGG)
Together with civil society organisations from all over the world, the Fair Green and Global (FGG) Alliance aims for socially just, inclusive and environmentally sustainable societies in the Netherlands and the Global South.
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External link / 24 June 2023
Joining voices to advance advocacy and security in a hostile environment (Annual Report 2022)
Uganda is one of many countries where the situation for environmental organisations has significantly deteriorated. Both ENDS has taken steps to develop a more systematic and proactive approach to supporting partners in addressing safety and security issues. In 2022 we successfully mobilised resources to support six Ugandan organisations to strengthen collaboration, increase their visibility, and carry out joint advocacy towards a green and sustainable future.
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Publication / 25 May 2023
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Letter / 20 February 2023
Letter of international CSO's to Dutch Parliament: close gaps in Dutch policy on limiting public finance to fossil fuels
In October 2022, the Dutch government published a policy to implement the COP26 statement in which it promised to stop public finance for fossil fuel projects abroad by the end of 2022 . The proposed policy, unfortunately, has quite some 'loopholes' that make it possible for the Dutch government to keep supporting large fossil projects abroad for at least another year. These projects often run for years and will have a negative impact on the countries where they take place for decades to come.
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News / 10 November 2022
African women raise their voice ahead of COP27 and call for climate justice
In October 2022, 150 women from 14 African Countries gathered in Port Harcourt, Nigeria for the first African Women's Climate Assembly. The aim of this Assembly was to strengthen and unify women-led struggles against dirty extractives and false solutions to the climate crisis in West and Central Africa, and propose the real development solutions that support women's interests in a good and decent life and livelihoods in a time of climate crisis.
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Letter / 22 September 2022
Letter to Dutch investors in TotalEnergies about EACOP project
A coalition of 13 Dutch organisations calls on investors like banks, pension funds and insurers to divest from TotalEnergies because of its EACOP project in Uganda and Tanzania. This new pipeline is causing human rights abuses, increased poverty, environmental pollution and climate change, and also TotalEnergies is using loopholes in the tax system to avoid taxes.
The letters has been send, among others, to the banks ABN AMRO, ING and Van Lanschot Kempen, pension funds ABP, BPL, PFZW, PMT and PNO media and the insurers Aegon, Allianz and Nationale Nederlanden. Together, the Dutch investors own shares and obligations worth more than 2.1 billion euros.
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News / 24 February 2022
1,380,000 euros from the Dutch Postcode Lottery for local women’s groups
We are delighted that the Dutch Postcode Lottery has approved our proposal to support an extra project to the tune of 1,380,000 euros! The proposal, for an Autonomy and Resilience Fund (ARF), was submitted by the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA), which comprises the Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres (FCAM), Mama Cash and Both ENDS. With the ARF, GAGGA works with Small Grants Funds to help local women's groups become resilient in a changing world in which it is increasingly difficult for them to hold their heads above water. The award of this large sum of money means an enormous boost for many women's organisations, and this is badly needed at a time when economic, climate and health crises are constantly putting the resilience of women, their communities and their living environments around the world to the test!
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Blog / 18 February 2022
This is what a fair and sustainable Africa strategy looks like
Minister Liesje Schreinemacher for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation recently made her first working visit, to Kenya and Uganda. With this visit, the minister made a flying start in honouring the pledge in the new government's coalition agreement to formulate a 'targeted Dutch Africa strategy'. Such a strategy is desperately needed as, too often, our foreign trade is conducted at the expense of people and the environment, including in countries in Africa. The new strategy presents a perfect opportunity to ensure that the 'trade and aid' agendas are closely aligned.
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News / 9 February 2022
Urgent letter to Dutch investors in Ugandan oil pipeline
TotalEnergies and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Cooperation (CNOOC) are currently developing an oil extraction and transportation project in Uganda: East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). The project – the construction of a heated pipeline (EACOP) of no less than 1445 kilometers through Uganda and Tanzania to export crude oil, is increasingly causing human rights violations and environmental damage. This is a matter of great concern to civil society organisations in Uganda and beyond. This week, Both ENDS, together with partner organisations in Uganda, sent an urgent letter to twelve pension funds and asset managers with investments in TotalEnergies and CNOOC.
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News / 24 October 2021
6 members of Ugandan organisation AFIEGO illegally arrested
On Friday October 22nd, six staff members of our partner organisation Africa Institute of Energy Governance (AFIEGO), including its director Dickens Kamugisha, were arrested in Kampala, Uganda. AFIEGO is one of four Ugandan organisations involved in several legal cases against the oil project, including the one against TotalEnergies in France and in the East African Court of Justice.
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Publication / 11 November 2020
