Empowerment of Socio-economic Associations

Abstract

The lord’s resistance army (LRA) has
 inflicted enormous suffering on millions of civilians in
 several countries of the Great Lakes and Central African
 regions since it began operating in the 1990s in Northern
 Uganda. In March 2008, after months of intensive efforts by
 regional and international stakeholders to bring the
 conflict to an end, representatives of the Government of
 Uganda and the LRA finalized the final peace agreement. The
 military operations have significantly reduced the strength
 and operational capacity of the LRA over the past three
 years. Despite the relative success of the joint military
 operations, the group continues to pose a serious security
 threat to civilians due to the limited capacity of the
 national security forces in the affected countries. The
 LRA’s indiscriminate attacks on civilians constitute serious
 violations of international humanitarian and human rights
 laws and have caused a serious humanitarian crisis in the
 affected countries. The main purpose of this paper is to
 outline the context and rationale for interventions in LRA
 affected areas, to briefly describe the pilot with its
 regional dimension, and to present lessons learned as well
 as recommendations for strengthening design and
 implementation of support to socio-economic associations in
 LRA affected areas.