Department of Development Studies

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A qualitative exploration of fermented milk processing traditionally practiced by the pokot ethnic group of Karamoja in Uganda
(Elsevier, 2026-07-09) Owiny Emmanuel; Oyet Sunday Mark; Chemutai Doreen; Kitambo Enos; Muggaga Christopher; Okello Uma-Ipolto
Traditional food processing methods have the potential to combat malnutrition while providing sustainable livelihoods in communities such as the Karamojong devasted by a high burden of malnutrition and associated health consequences. The purpose of the current study was to document the traditional milk processing among the Pokot community in Karamoja subregion of Uganda, specifically focusing on the sour milk. A qualitative study involving five key informants and 46 Focus Group Discussion (FGD) participants was employed. We found that traditional knowledge of fermenting milk is passed by the older women to younger generations while in their childhood. We also observed that the Pokot ethnic community used burnt plant parts for treating fermentation vessels. Calabash or gourds were the most common fermentation vessels though some households used plastic jerricans as fermentation vessels. A traditionally fermented milk locally known as lolon, follows seven key steps: cleaning of the gourds, milking, sieving, boiling, defatting, fermentation, and draining. Our study demonstrates that milk processing by traditional methods by the Pokot ethnic community is culturally entrenched, initiated when the women are at a young age. Cultural identity associated with the milk processing among the Pokot reinforces food systems, therefore, we recommend the need for further empirical research beyond the current exploration such as innovations for improving and optimizing the process steps to improve food security and nutrition among the Pokot community in Karamoja subregion.
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SECONDARY EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY OF PARENTS-TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATIONS (PTAs) IN KASESE DISTRICT
(Gulu University, 2010) Mpisi Sulayman Ramadhan, BABIIHA; Development Studies (UMU);, MA Ethics
Contextual factors associated with depression among urban refugee and displaced youth in Kampala, Uganda: findings from a cross-sectional study
(Springer Nature, 2020-05-15) Logie Carmen H.; Okumu Moses; Mwima Simon; Hakiza Robert; Chemutai Doreen; Kyambadde Peter
Background: Advancing mental health among refugee and displaced adolescents and youth is critically important, as chronic psychological stress can have lifelong harmful impacts. These groups experience socio-environmental stressors that can harm mental health. Informed by a social contextual framework, this study explored the prevalence of depression among urban refugee and displaced youth in Kampala, Uganda and associations with symbolic (violence), relational (social support), and material (food and community insecurity) contexts. Methods: We implemented a cross-sectional survey with refugee and displaced adolescent girls and young women and adolescent boys and young men aged 16–24 living in Kampala’s informal settlements. We conducted peer-driven recruitment, whereby peer navigators shared study information with their networks and in turn participants were invited to recruit their peers. We conducted gender disaggregated analyses, including stepwise multiple regression to examine factors associated with depression. We then conducted structural equation modeling (SEM) using weighted least squares estimation to examine direct paths from violence, food insecurity, and community insecurity to depression, and indirect effects through social support. Results: Among participants (n = 445), young women (n = 333) reported significantly higher depression symptoms than young men (n = 112), including any symptoms (73.9% vs. 49.1%, p < 0.0001), mild to moderate symptoms (60.4% vs. 45.5%, p = 0.008), and severe symptoms (13.5% vs 3.6%, p = 0.002). SEM results among young women indicate that the latent violence factor (lifetime sexual and physical violence) had direct effects on depression and social support, but social support did not mediate the path from violence to depression. The model fit the data well: χ2(3) = 9.82, p = 0.020; RMSEA = 0.08, 90% CI [0.03, 0.14], CFI = 0.96). Among young men, SEM findings indicate that food insecurity had direct effects on social support, and an indirect effect on depression through the mediating role of social support. Fit indices suggest good model fit: χ2(3) = 2.09, p = 0.352; RMSEA = 0.02, 90% CI [0.000, 0.19], CFI = 0.99.
Cultivating Voters’ Perceptions and Women’s Political Representation in Uganda
(Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies, 2025-02-01) Dr. Doreen Chemutai (PhD)
This study considers voter perceptions as resources women politicians cultivate. How women cultivate this resource is relatively understudied in Uganda. The study addresses the gap in the literature through a qualitative approach. Women Members of Parliament (MPs) representing the Northern Uganda districts of Kitgum, Pader, Oyam, Agago, and Gulu selected purposively completed individual in-depth interviews. Additionally, constituents in Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) provided input with the help of a discussion guide. Findings reveal that voters' perceptions of women MPs are contextual; voter characteristics and expectations influence voters' impression of an individual. Irrespective of the seat type, women MPs cultivate votes through constituency service. However, women in reserved seats use humility, honesty, and motherliness to influence voters' perceptions. Compared to women in open seats, women in reserved seats are better at nurturing voter perceptions. A further revelation is that a reciprocal relationship exists between voters' perceptions of MPs and performance outcomes. The study suggests that voters' perceptions are an essential political resource as they provide a feedback loop for improved performance, better policies and the election of good leaders.
International Capital, Inclusive Planning and Post-War Recovery: The Case of Acholi Land, Northern Uganda
(2015-06) Mpisi Sulayman*, Babiiha
As people of Uganda’s Acholi sub region struggle to rebuild their livelihoods after more than two decades of armed insurgency and internal displacement, they remain suspicious of the government’s motive to allocate their land to foreign investors. By taking Amuru District Land Board to court for allocating their land to Madhvani Group’s Amuru Sugar Works in 2007, the local community has underlined its distrust of the government and its institutions. They hold that the idea of promoting large scale agro-based industrial production through Madhvani sugar project was a falsehood and that Madhvani was merely a smokescreen to disguise land grabbing by big people in government. The findings of this study highlight deep suspicion of government motive in allocating 1,200 hectares of land in Amuru district to Madhvani Group which, to them, strongly revives the historical perception of marginalisation of northerners (who include the Acholi). The conclusion from the study is that although international capital is vital for the recovery process, where it involves natural resources such as land, its effectiveness is likely to be affected negatively unless local communities are included in the planning process; which calls for an inclusive rather than a top-down recovery strategy.
Motives and Political Representation: The Case of Women Members of Parliament in Uganda
(East African Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, 2023-11-10) Chemutai Doreen; Mulyampiti Tabitha
Women’s political representation in Uganda is a contentious issue. On the one hand, there are doubting public narratives of Women Members of Parliaments’ (WMP) performance. The doubts about WMPs’ performance inspired growing interest in their parliamentary performance. On the other hand, there are concerns about the gender gap in parliamentary representation. The underrepresentation of women in the political scene raises a puzzle about those who dare to compete. However, at the same time, there has been neglect of what drives women in the first place to parliamentary representation and their relationship to performance. This intriguing question calls for an objective analysis to unravel what influences women’s interest in parliamentary office. This paper answers two analytical questions: How do women Members of Parliament construe their interests in joining parliamentary politics? And whether WMPs’ motives influence their performance. These questions were answered by analysing conversations and interviews of five purposively selected WMPs representing five districts of Northern Uganda in the tenth Parliament between 2020 and 2021. Field data was triangulated with performance data from the same Parliament’s Hansard. Findings reveal that personal and social-cultural factors drive WMPs to Parliament. Motives are consequential to performance, although personal motives were more potent than socialcultural motives to performance. Personal, compared to social-cultural motives, are more susceptible to social-political factors in constituencies, institutions of Parliament, and the broad government, affecting motives’ fulfilment
We shall secede…’ - narratives of marginalisation in post war participatory recovery of Acholi, northern Uganda
(A Journal of Language, Culture and Communication, 2018) Sulayman Babiiha, Mpisi
Set in a remote part of Acholi, on the northern side of Murchison Falls National Park, northern Uganda, this paper focuses on the efforts of the local community in Pabit Parish as they rebuild their agricultural livelihoods in the aftermath of the 20-year civil war. Their struggle to recover, however, hung in the balance as problem animals started to destroy their crops. Their recovery became even more uncertain when their efforts to dialogue with the government about the unfair wildlife policy remained unheeded. Meanwhile, the Acholi Culture and Tourism Centre project set up by Purongo Sub County Local Government to supplement the people’s agricultural livelihoods was marred in conflicts that threatened its very existence. What had started as a post war participatory development thus turned out to be an arena of conflict.Using ethnographic methods of data collection integrated within a case study, this study focuses on the tourism centre project. Premised on principles of participation, the project had been considered instrumental, not only in the protection of wildlife in Murchison Falls Park which would attract more tourists, and thus more revenue to the community from commercial tourism, but also through promoting agricultural livelihoods, the mainstay of the local economy. However, the reluctance of wildlife officials to engage communities in policy discussions, and internal weaknesses in the governance structural systems, combine to frustrate efforts in the local community to recover their livelihoods for a better standard of living.
“When elephants come…” - Narratives of marginality in post war Acholi(’s) Murchison Falls National Park, northern Uganda
(2016-12) Mpisi Sulayman, Babiiha
Set in post conflict northern Uganda, this paper analyses the challenges facing local communities living adjacent to Murchison Falls National Park in Acholi land as they grapple with efforts to restore their livelihoods, in view of costs and losses inflicted on them by problem animals. Their return to their villages after 20 years of the war between insurgents of Lord’s Resistance Army and the government of Uganda held a lot of promise. The state sponsored Peace, Recovery and Development Plan; donor funded projects; multinational agricultural companies setting up in the area; and the tourism revenue sharing fund; all pointed to an empowering recovery process for the local community to achieve self-reliance. However, the pain of consistent destruction of their crops by wildlife, an unfair policy on compensation of damage caused by problem animals, worsened by the government refusal to plan with the affected communities made them feel left out. This paper focuses on the Tourism Revenue Sharing Fund as a tool to analyse the costs and losses incurred by local peasants who continue to lose their agricultural livelihoods but whose appeals for dialogue continue to be ignored by the state. Data for this paper were collected using ethnographic methods that included in-depth interviews of key informants, observation, as well as both formal and informal interactions with members of the local community in Pabit parish of Purongo in Acholi sub region, and government documents.

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