Developmental Disappointment

Abstract

Chapter 3 shows that, with decolonization, many Ngarans stopped traveling to Uganda for work and engaged in self-help projects and village development. This participation indicates a local awareness of and enthusiasm for the rhetoric of nation building espoused by the new central government. However, much of this development work existed only on paper and in the promises of the new government and went largely unfulfilled. People in Ngara often engaged in development projects, such as coffee and tobacco farming, only to find their efforts thwarted by cumbersome and paternalistic bureaucracies. The gap between local needs and state programs and promises led to Ngarans' refusal to conform to the flawed plans of both the colonial and postcolonial governments. Ngarans then sought regional alternatives to the failed marketing and export programs of their new state, as they had before and would again.