Suchergebnisse

Public health and conflict early warning are evolving rapidly in response to technology changes for the gathering, management, analysis and communication of data. It is expected that these changes will provide an unprecedented ability to monitor, detect, and respond to crises. One of the potentially most profound and lasting expected change affects the roles of the various actors in providing and sharing information and in responding to early warning. Communities and civil society actors have the opportunity to be empowered as a source of information, analysis, and response, while the role of traditional actors shifts toward supporting those communities and building resilience. However, by creating new roles, relationships, and responsibilities, technology changes raise major concerns and ethical challenges for practitioners, pressing the need for practical guidelines and actionable recommendations in line with existing ethical principles. Adapted from the source document.

This report presents the results of a large-scale population-based survey about peace, justice, and social reconstruction in northern Uganda intended to capture community views on matters that affect ordinary people and the recovery after twenty years of conflicts. The survey was carried out between April and May 2010 in four districts (the Acholi districts) of northern Uganda: Amuru, Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader. The findings are based on a total of 2,498 interviews with adults in various locations, including home villages, resettlement sites, and former camps. They provide results that are representative of the adult population in those four districts. This is the third large-scale survey conducted in this region by the Initiative for Vulnerable Populations at the University of California, Berkeley's Human Rights Center. The previous surveys were conducted in 2005, while the war with the LRA continued, and in 2007 when peace negotiations were underway. This survey was designed to allow comparison with earlier surveys among the Acholi districts. It also responds to the post-conflict context by including more questions about development and reconstruction. Interviews were conducted anonymously and confidentially, using a standardized questionnaire about respondents' demographic profiles, their current priorities, their access to services and information, their concerns about resettlement, and their views on social cohesion, security, violence, peace, justice and accountability. Detailed results provided in the report reveal a picture of communities in a time of transition, optimistic about the future, concentrated on rebuilding their lives and renewing livelihood activities, and demanding more accountability from government. At the same time, people have not forgotten the war and are concerned about holding perpetrators (including government forces) accountable, reintegrating combatants, and assisting victims. It also reveals that many of these close-knit communities in northern Uganda remain isolated, with little access to news and information (although this is somewhat improved from 2007), little engagement in government programs that affect them, and little contact with authorities or communities outside of their locales.

Since the late 1980s, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a spiritualist rebel group with no clear political agenda, has abducted tens of thousands of children and adults to serve as porters and soldiers. Experience of forced conscription into the LRA is traumatic and varies in scope and intensity. Children and youth – some as young as 7 and 8 years old – have been forced to mutilate and kill civilians, including members of their own families and communities. In 1994, a group of parents of abducted children to establish the Gulu Support the Children Organization (GUSCO), a reception center in Gulu that provides medical care, counseling, and a number of other services. More than 20,000 children and youth have since passed through GUSCO and other reception centers throughout northern Uganda. In December 2005, the Berkeley-Tulane Initiative on Vulnerable Populations launched The Database Project to better document abduction and help improve the capacity of 8 reception centers in the northern districts of Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, Apac, and Lira to collect and analyze information about former LRA abductees. At the time, these centers were still providing housing and care to hundreds of children and youth. This report presents the findings of the project, which analyzes the overall incidence of abduction based on those data and provides recommendations aimed at improving the process of reintegrating former LRA abductees into their communities.