The Political economy of Land grabbing in Oil resource areas. The Uganda Albertine Graben.

Abstract There has been an increase in land grabbing in the world over the years and the trend seems to be increasing in the same direction. Whereas, the phenomenon is said to be happening across all continents except Antarctica, in this Africa is the primary target. Uganda too has not been spared and the discovery of oil in 2006 added an insult to an injury. Though, the phenomenon has lived with the world for some good time, it continues to happen with less efforts being made to curb it. As a result, a study was carried out to gain a deeper understanding of the drivers of land grabbing in Uganda’s Albertine Graben. It was a desk study and employed an abductive approach though some primary data was also collected to back it up. The political economy approach was employed to understand the different political and economic dynamics involved in land grabbing. The study found out the issue of absentee land lords and the discovery of oil in 2006 as the main reasons that explain the occurrence of the phenomenon something that is different from the many scholars’ view that agricultural reasons are the main cause. Land grabbing was further seen as mainly negative as it leads to loss of economic livelihoods, lack of cooking energy, displacement of people among others. The study learned that massive sensitization of the people about their rights; strict implementation of the existing laws by the government would help to reduce or solve the problem. Key words, Land grabbing, land acquisition, Albertine Graben, Bunyoro, political economy approach.