The Influence Of The Lord’s Resistance Army (Lra) On Poverty In Uganda: A Case Study Of Batta Sub- County, Dokolo District Northern Uganda

ABsTRAcT

The study on the “Influence of the Lord’s Resistance Army on Poverty in Northern Uganda”,

was carried out in Baa with specific aims of; examining the cause of war; finding out the impact

of war on high poverty level and providing possible solution to war driven poverty. A review of

related literature was carried out on existing information on the specific variables to comprehend

the problem, enrich and supplement the study findings. The literature however does not reflect

how exactly war leads to poverty. The study relied on an exploratory research design where both

qualitative and quantitative aspects were observed through use of questionnaires and interviews

administered on a sample of 50 respondents. Data analysis will be carried out through sketchy

and generalized summaries and presented in pie-charts and bar graphs. The study established

that, wars in Baa were arose from land wrangles, a conflicting history of the area, class war,

disruptive party politics, ethnic differences and poor dispute resolution mechanism. The impact

of war on high levels of poverty was established as; destroyed infrastructure and absence of

access to social services; displacement and homelessness of people; violation of human rights

and psychological upsets leading to hopelessness; death and migration of social capital in

addition to underdevelopment. Efforts undertaken to curb poverty by government and actors

included; exploiting opportunities to prevent against conflicts; creating opportunities for

sustainable peace; empowering and capacitating communities; rebuilding the institutional set up

and social capital. The study also concluded that, war impoverishes people by destroying and

weakening community structures both human and capital living little for a society’s survival.

Thus study recommends; need for political reconstruction; restoration of the rule of law; building

the capacities of the community; restore social capital and human resources; need for collective

identification of problems; building individual capacities; institutional capacities should develop

the existing ones; need for community transformation and considering capacity building as a long term formidable task.