Dr. Ayub Mukisa: A Critical Look at Projects and Programmes in Karamoja: Why They Fail (Part 1)

Writing from the Karamoja Subregion, where project and programme approaches have long been marketed as the primary vehicles for development, let me clarify why many projects and programmes continue to fail to deliver and meet the needs of the Karimojong people. The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines a project as “a unique interrelated set of tasks with a beginning, an end, and a well-defined outcome” (Project Management Institute, 2021). PMI further defines a programme as a collection of related projects managed in a coordinated way to achieve benefits that would not be available if the projects were managed separately. For clarity, when I refer to projects and programmes in Karamoja, I mean both government and NGO-led interventions.

Matteo Caravani, in his 2024 publication titled “The failing aid complex in Uganda’s northeast,” argued that despite large amounts of aid money flowing into Karamoja, development challenges persist because of confusion, lack of accountability, and limited learning from previous failures. Caravani further argues that different actors — governments, donors, NGOs, international agencies, and local leaders — often engage in blame games whenever projects fail instead of honestly examining the root causes of failure.

Therefore, this article examines the root causes behind the failure of many projects and programmes in Karamoja. Beginning with projects, there is the problem of short-termism. The project approach is structurally incapable of addressing long-term and systemic challenges because its funding cycles, reporting requirements, and success indicators are all oriented toward short-term results. A typical development project lasts between three and five years. Progress is measured quarterly, while success is assessed at the end of the project cycle. Yet the challenges these projects claim to address — such as chronic poverty, food insecurity, and climate change — unfold across decades and generations.

Professor Oweyegha-Afunaduula from the Center for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis Uganda (CCTAA) described this short-termist approach in project work as “build and destroy, then build again.”

Simply put, a project may distribute improved seeds and fertilizer, but once the project ends, farmers often return to previous practices because sustainable input supply chains were never established. In many cases, communities become temporary beneficiaries rather than long-term participants in development processes.
Away from short-termism is the dependency problem.

In Karamoja, project implementation has become fundamentally dependent on external financing. This dependency is not accidental; it is one of the mechanisms through which International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and donor nations continue to shape development priorities. Closely related to this is what I call the “Coordination Fallacy” in programme work — the mistaken belief that simply improving coordination among organizations is enough to solve complex development problems. Though the programme approach assumes that coordination among projects will produce synergy and reduce fragmentation, coordination alone is not enough. If projects fail to address deeper structural issues and long-term sustainability, then coordinated action merely produces coordinated failure.

This article will be continued in Part 2.

Ayub Mukisa, PhD
Executive Director, Karamoja Anti-Corruption Coalition (KACC)
Email: ayubmukisa@gmail.com

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