Oil Uganda Policy Report

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Oil in Uganda: Policy Report

Guy Grossman∗ Laura Paler† Jan Pierskalla‡ Leslie Marshall§

April 24, 2015

∗Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania (corresponding author). Email:[email protected]†Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh‡Assistant Professor, Ohio State University§Ph.D. Student, University of Pittsburgh

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Contents

1 Executive Summary 6

2 Introduction 10

3 A Resource Curse in Uganda? 14

4 Overview of the Study 15

5 Public Opinion in Uganda – Baseline Statistics 19

5.1 Government Services and Policy Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

5.2 Political Attitudes and Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

6 Understanding Variation in Engagement on Oil 36

6.1 Prior Knowledge of Oil in Uganda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

6.2 Special Module: Oil Region Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

7 The Political Geography of Oil 54

8 Oil Information Experiments 62

8.1 National versus Regional Benefits of Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Appendix A Survey Demographics 76

Appendix B Political Geography 81

Appendix C Information Experiments 85

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List of Tables

1 Overview of Survey Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

2 Overview of Survey Questions, Expected Benefits and Concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

3 Differences between oil and non-oil regions, general outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

4 Differences between oil and non-oil regions, oil-specific outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

5 Differences between oil and non-oil regions, expected benefits and concerns . . . . . . . . . 60

6 General Background Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

7 Ethnic identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

8 Pre-Matching Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

9 Post-Matching Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

10 Oil and non-oil region differences by NRM support (general outcomes) . . . . . . . . . . . 82

11 Oil and non-oil region differences by NRM support (oil-specific outcomes) . . . . . . . . . 83

12 Oil and non-oil region differences by NRM support (expected benefits and concerns) . . . . 84

List of Figures

1 Oil Exploration and Discoveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2 Relationship between oil proximity and party ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3 Quality of public services (full sample) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4 Quality of public services (by oil proximity) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

5 Quality of public services (by party ID) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

6 Policy prioritization (full sample) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

7 Policy prioritization (by oil proximity) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

8 Policy prioritization (by gender) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

9 Political knowledge scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

10 News Consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

11 Satisfaction with government job performance (full sample) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

12 Satisfaction with government job performance (by stratification variables) . . . . . . . . . . 29

13 Trust in government officials (full sample) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

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14 Trust in government officials (by stratification variables) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

15 Perceptions of corruption among government officials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

16 Confidence in parliament and local government (full sample) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

17 Satisfaction with democracy in Uganda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

18 Political participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

19 Political efficacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

20 Oil knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

21 Oil knowledge (by oil status) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

22 Perception of oil revenues’ effect on the national budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

23 Perception of oil revenues’ effect on the national budget (by stratification variables) . . . . . 39

24 Spending preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

25 Respondents’ mean allocation oil revenue across branches of government . . . . . . . . . . 42

26 Distribution across oil and non-oil districts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

27 Expected benefits from oil production: Uganda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

28 Expected benefits from oil production: Household . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

29 Oil Revenues Realized Benefits (Country) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

30 Oil Revenues Most Important Realized Benefits (Country) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

31 Concerns regarding negative oil impact (household) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

32 Greatest concern regarding possible negative oil impact (household) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

33 Assessment of the impact of oil for Uganda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

34 Management of Oil Activities for the Community’s Benefit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

35 Addressing community concerns about the oil sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

36 MP consult community members in the oil districts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

37 Present and future benefits from oil companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

38 Biggest benefit expected from oil companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5339 Oil companies and the national government performance comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

40 Information Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

41 National treatment effects—treatment check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

42 National treatment effects on demand for information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

43 National treatment effects on willingness to take political action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

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44 National treatment effects on behavioral outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

45 National treatment—possible adverse effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

46 Regional treatment effects—treatment check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

47 Regional treatment effects on demand for information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

48 Regional treatment effects on willingness to take political action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

49 Regional treatment effects on behavioral outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

50 Regional treatment—possible adverse effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

51 Summary Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

52 Religious affiliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

53 Primary income generating activity (by gender) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

54 Executive control treatment effects—treatment check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

55 Executive control treatment effects—treatment check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

56 Executive control treatment effects on demand for information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

57 Executive control treatment effects on willingness to take political action . . . . . . . . . . . 89

58 Executive control treatment effects on behavioral outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

59 MP control treatment effects—treatment check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

60 MP control treatment effects—treatment check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

61 MP control treatment effects on demand for information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

62 MP control treatment effects on willingness to take political action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

63 MP control treatment effects on behavioral outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

64 Oil companies experiment—summary of treatment effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

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1 Executive Summary

Following the discovery of oil in Uganda in 2006, the question of whether the country’s newfound resource

wealth will be beneficial or harmful for its development has been a focus of substantial attention. In the

past two decades there has been a growing awareness on the part of academics, practitioners, and policy

makers around the world of the possible detrimental effects of mineral wealth, including weak economic

growth, corruption, civil conflict, and the erosion of transparency and accountability in many resource-rich

countries. The ‘resource curse’ can take shape through numerous different channels. Evidence suggests

that it can undermine the incentives of political leaders to implement policies that are in the best interest of

citizens; weaken the will or ability of citizens to be politically engaged; or generate grievances within society

over how the wealth is distributed. Importantly, whether examining accountability deficits or conflict, at the

heart of the matter are the knowledge, expectations, preferences and sense of ownership of regular citizens.

The starting point of this study is our belief that in order to counteract the possibility of a resource curse

one has to pay close attention to what the public knows and wants, and how these may change overtime in

response to changing circumstances.This project is therefore explicitly designed to provide a baseline assessment of citizens’ knowledge and

attitudes toward oil, approximately 2-3 years prior to the actual commercial production of oil in Uganda.

The first goal of this research project is to study the knowledge of and engagement of Ugandans on oil

issues—including their demand for transparency and accountability in the oil sector. To accomplish this,

we conducted a nationally representative survey of 2,714 people from 76 constituencies and 304 villages in

52 districts across Uganda. The survey allows us to assess Ugandans’ current state of knowledge regarding

the oil sector, their sense of ownership over natural resources, their expectations regarding the impact of oil

revenues on Uganda, and their preferences with respect to the usage of oil revenues. When analyzing survey

responses special care was given to examining how citizens’ knowledge and engagement varies depending

on individual-level characteristics (such as gender and party affiliation) and geography (proximity to oil

production sites).

The main findings of the survey, discussed below in Sections 5 and 6, are somewhat alarming. Ugandans

have low levels of knowledge of the oil sector, and they especially know very little about the size of the

expected revenue. More so, we find that Ugandans do not view oil governance issues as politically salient,

even though the survey took place as the Ugandan parliament was debating key aspects of the sector’s

regulatory framework. Consistent with the resource curse literature, Ugandans have very high (unrealistic)

expectations regarding the impact of oil on the national budget and they generally expect that many positive

benefits would be realized in the short term. In addition we find that Ugandans express low levels of trust

with parliament and in their MP and they have little confidence that parliament is able to check the power of

the executive branch. This too is a source of concern. Equally concerning is our finding that, at least outside

the oil regions, most Ugandans underestimate the possible costs of oil production and exploration, and that

residents of oil and non-oil regions have quite different ideas regarding what constitutes a fair allocation of

oil revenue to the oil regions.

Indeed we find significant differences between oil residents and non-oil residents in both attitudes and

political behavior. For example, Ugandans in the oil region show stronger support for the NRM, and gen-

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erally report higher levels of trust in and satisfaction with the President. In addition, we find that oil-region

residents have different policy priorities and are more politically active than constituents in non-oil areas.

Specific to oil, Ugandans in the oil regions have greater knowledge of oil related issues and higher ex-

pectations regarding the impact of oil on the size of the national budget. They also show a preference for

allocating a larger share of oil revenue to the oil region and, moreover, have higher expectation of receiving

future benefits from oil companies. They generally trust the national government to manage the oil sector

effectively.

Importantly, though results presented in Section 5 and Section 6 allow us to compare attitudes and

behavior as a function of oil-region status, they do not allow us to conclude that these differences are due

to the oil discovery, rather than to some other factors. The second goal of the study is therefore to push

our analysis to further unpack public opinion and attitudes of ordinary Ugandans as a function of proximity

to oil. Specifically, we are interested in exploring whether some of the systematic differences found in our

public opinion survey between oil and non-oil residents are in fact due to the oil discovery.

The challenge with knowing the extent to which oil is contributing to these differences is that there

are other factors correlated with both the location of oil and the outcomes of interest. When we address

this challenge statistically in Section 7 by controlling for pre-discovery factors, we find that, even after

accounting for pre-discovery factors, oil-region residents express a higher level of awareness about oil-

related issues paired with an increased demand for a larger share of oil revenue to be allocated to the oil

regions. Equally important is our finding that for a number of distinct activities, respondents in the oil

region are far less likely to become politically active with regard to the issue of oil: oil region residents

report less willingness to seek information about the president’s handling of the oil sector or information

about local officials; they are less likely to attend rallies in support of policies dealing with the management

of the oil sector; they are also less willing to attend community meetings arranged by oil companies or

contact their community leaders; and they are also less interested in signing up for an SMS service thatwould have provided them with additional information about oil in the future. In short, we document a

robust and consistent finding that though residents of oil districts know more about oil and expect to receive

a larger share of future revenues, they are at the same time significantly less likely to act in ways that might

seem confrontational.

On one hand, despite the fact that tangible benefits of oil production are yet to be realized, local residents

are better informed about the oil sector and have very clear expectations about future revenue flows. On the

other hand, while the discovery of oil has heightened expectations about fiscal revenues and specific benefits,

respondents in the oil region are clearly not (yet) willing to become politically engaged in support of these

demands. Instead, individuals are decidedly less willing to engage government officials than respondents in

the non-oil regions. While it is too early to identify the exact reasons for this pattern, one plausible explana-

tion might be that Ugandans in the oil region engage in anticipatory acquiescence and do not want to ‘rock

the boat’, momentarily giving the government the benefit of the doubt. If this is indeed the case, any efforts

at ensuring good governance of the oil sector by encouraging citizen engagement might face substantial

difficulties. We believe that it is of utmost importance to track whether levels of trust in the President and

willingness to disengage politically changes overtime as public expectations about oil production adjust to

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actual realities. Indeed, the lack of willingness to engage on the issue of oil is clearly not driven by a lack

of concerns. As we show below, Ugandans in the oil region are quite sensitive to a host of risks associated

with oil production and exploration. This suggests that while a careful ‘wait-and-see’ attitude is prevalent at

the moment, adjusted expectations might quickly generate meaningful changes in peoples’ attitudes.

Given the relatively low levels of knowledge and engagement at present, a key policy relevant question

arises: how can citizens be mobilized to demand better governance of the oil sector? The third key goal of

this research project is, therefore, to test whether providing citizens with information about oil related issues

can encourage them to take action to demand transparency and accountable management of the resource

sector. To explore the question of how to use information to mobilize political action, we implemented a set

of information experiments within the survey. Each experiment was explicitly designed to examine the effect

of specific factors that may change the way citizens reevaluate the importance of being politically engaged

with respect to oil management. For example, we examine whether political engagement can increase when

citizens receive information on the size of the national and regional benefits of oil or on the role of elected

officials (the President, MPs, and local government) in managing resource wealth. The experimental design

and results are presented in great detail in Section 8.

Previewing our results, we do not find strong evidence that providing information on oil motivates

greater political action, at least not at this point in time. Though we find some evidence that providing

information on the impact of oil on the national budget leads to higher levels of engagement in the non-

oil region, this primarily seems to arise by depressing engagement in the oil region. We also find some

evidence that information on allocation of greater resources to oil regions increases demand for information

in the oil and non-oil regions alike. This, however, does not necessarily translate into a willingness to

hold politicians accountable in the oil region. Importantly our experimental findings are consistent with a

‘don’t rock the boat’ story in the oil region. Indeed the study provides suggestive evidence that reminding oil

region residents about national and regional benefits has the effect of making them less willing to take actionoriented at politicians, even if it makes them more interested in oil-related issues. Overall, the weakness of

the experimental results further corroborate the difficulties associated with using information to mobilize

political engagement at this early stage in the production process before revenue has started flowing.

This study makes several contributions to the study of oil governance in Uganda, and beyond. First, it

contributes to the understanding of the potential for a resource curse in Uganda and for the phenomenon of

the resource curse more broadly. To our knowledge this is the only systematic study of how individuals are

thinking and feeling about oil issues at this early stage of the extraction process. Although production has

not yet begun, as described above, this is the key period in which the institutional framework governing the

sector is being put in place. Thus, even though oil as an issue may not be as salient as it will be once the

revenue starts flowing in, this is the key time to think about how to mobilize citizens to demand a transparent

and accountable resource sector and try to influence the policy debate at the national level.

Second, though the resource curse literature assumes that the actions of citizens, their expectations and

attitudes are key in understanding why the curse takes place in some places but not in others, very few

studies have actually measured those key ingredients. This study is therefore unique in actually measur-

ing the political attitudes, expectations, preferences, policy priorities, and political behavior of Ugandans,

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rather than simply assuming them from the realities on the ground. We wish to stress however, that this

study provides a snapshot of the attitudes, preferences and sense of ownership about three years prior to oil

extraction. In order to know in what direction Uganda is trending—i.e., whether it is averting or heading

towards a resource curse—it is of utmost importance to track such attitudes and behavior over time. Know-

ing where the public stands and what it knows can also help in the design of outreach activities, better align

government activities with the public’s preferences, and ensure the inclusion of ordinary Ugandans’ voices

in public debates over the governance of the oil sector and how future revenues will be used.

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Figure 1: Albertine Graben Oil Exploration and Discoveries

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and to sign agreements in the oil sector without the need to obtain parliamentary approval. In addition, the

law does not require the Ugandan government to make public the Production Sharing Agreements it signs

with oil companies. In addition, the president was granted the powers to nominate the board members of

the newly established National Petroleum Authority (NPA).2 Parliament was also able to strike some small

victories: (a) it was granted the right to approve the president’s pick of the NPA’s board members, (b) it

passed an amendment ensuring that the NPA and the National Oil Company would be 100% state owned

and (c) it dropped a clause that granted the government a right for confidentiality in oil wealth management.

Notably almost half of members of parliament left the chamber in protest and therefore did not cast a vote,

which has been interpreted in Uganda as a sign of a growing reluctance of parliament to act as a rubber

stamp for the executive.

The current Petroleum Bill does not address the issue of oil revenue management. Instead, a separate

“Petroleum Revenue Management” section was somewhat unceremoniously passed into law as part of the

new Public Finance Management Act (2015) after being first proposed in 2010. What began as a bill

meant to concentrate decision-making power in the hands of the executive, met with enough resistance from

parliament to prompt a radical redrafting. The new law is well-summarized by prominent Ugandan journalist

Angelo Izama, who has been covering oil and gas developments in the country for several years: “In total

the new law places responsibility for management of oil revenues on the country’s ministry of finance

and the Central Bank while holding elected governments responsible for spending limitations through the

execution of a ’Charter of Fiscal Responsibility’ at the start of the financial year. The Parliament is ultimately

responsible for approving expenditures and auditing the performance of the government.” 3 It is evident that

over a relatively short period of time, the imminent introduction of oil to Uganda’s economy has prompted

a surge in demand from parliament for a greater share of control over governance in Uganda.

Still, it is not clear that the new division will actually result in more decision-making power for par-

liamentarians, as President Museveni’s strong influence over the oil sector is well-known. 4 Uganda hasgenerally weak democratic institutions and many of its statutory bodies (e.g., National Environment Au-

thority) have disturbingly low capacity that commonly cripples their oversight and implementation powers. 5

Together with a political culture that is tolerant towards corruption, there is real danger that Uganda is fol-

lowing a path that leads towards a resource curse. This concern is shared among many stakeholders —

journalists, civil-society activists and MPs — active in the debates over the regulation of Uganda’s oil and

gas sector.

The prospect of oil production has also generated debate over the appropriate distribution of oil revenues.

2The bill established a National Oil Company (NOC) and a National Petroleum Authority (NPA) as the industry regulator. The

relationship between the Petroleum Exploration and Production Department of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development,

the NOC and the PA and the roles and responsibilities of each of those statutory bodies are still somewhat unclear. See “Oil in

Uganda”.3Angelo Izama, “Uganda quietly passes oil revenue management law,” November 30, 2014.4For example, decisions such as which of the two competing firms, a Russian and Korean conglomerate, gets selected to be the

lead investor for the proposed 60bpd refinery, rest with him alone. See Izama “Uganda quietly passes oil revenue management law,”

November 30, 2014.5Interviews we conducted in Uganda suggest that state capacity is just as important as regulation. Many times the source of

civil unrest is not the legal framework—indeed, some of the laws protecting, say, the environment, are quite progressive—but lack

enforcement.

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Again, crucial decision-making power rests with the presidency in setting the parameters of the fiscal bargain

over future oil revenues. The recently passed Public Finance Management Act, while only a first step,

is likely to codify a status quo with respect to the distribution of government revenues across levels of

government and between producer and non-producer regions that will be hard to overturn. According to the

Public Finance Management Act (2015), the central government will retain 93 percent of royalties arising

from petroleum production and the remaining six percent will be shared among the local governments

located in the ‘oil region’ (Article 75.1). In an important departure from earlier drafts, cultural or traditional

institutions (i.e. the traditional kingdoms) will be granted one percentage point of royalties at the expense

of the local governments, which were previously slated to receive seven percent of royalties.

One other debate settled (at least temporarily) by the Public Finance Management Act is the formula for

dividing the oil revenue among the oil-region district governments. Of the six percent of annual royalties

allocated to all ‘oil-region’ local government, 50% will be shared in proportion to level of production,

and 50% allocated based on population size, geographic area and terrain. Another, subtler, dimension

of the fiscal debate hinges on the definition of the oil region in regards to the fiscal formula outlined in

the Public Finance Management Act. Importantly, the Public Finance Management Act (2015) does not

provide a definition of eligible local governments, and instead empowers the Minister of Energy and Mineral

Development (i.e., the executive branch) to come up with a list of eligible local governments. 6 Executive

influence over the official designation of producer regions – narrowly defined over actual oil production or

more liberally to include the wider region adjacent to Lake Albert – will have enormous consequences for

local government revenue. The designation of local governments as being inside or outside the ‘oil-region’

will also have significant distributional implications that could be a source of future grievances, as has been

the case in Nigeria (Blair, 2014), Bolivia (Mähler and Pierskalla, 2015) and elsewhere.

Finally, it is notable that, to a large extent, the public has been all but absent in the recent debates over

the regulation of the oil sector. With few exceptions, most of the work of civil society organizations (CSOs)has been to educate and build the capacity of urban elites: MPs and journalists. This reflects to a large

degree the skepticism of civil society players with respect to the public’s role in policymaking. Interviews

we conducted suggest that many CSO activists do not believe that the public can construct meaningful

preferences with respect to oil because the sector is “too technical.” Even if the public had clear priorities

and preferences, it is widely believed that public opinion can hardly matter because Uganda (as in many

low-income countries) lacks the institutional framework to aggregate citizens’ opinions: opposition parties

are weak and there are virtually no independent periodic public opinion polls. This project is designed

to help alleviate the lack of two-way communication on oil and oil-related issues by providing a baseline

assessment of citizens’ knowledge and attitudes toward oil approximately three years prior to the actual

commercial production of oil in Uganda.

6Importantly, in previous drafts the 6-7 percent royalties were granted to the ‘district governments’. In the version that eventually

passed into law, the term was changed to “local governments” in order to include Town Councils and Municipalities, which are

independent of the LC1-LC5 structure.

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3 A Resource Curse in Uganda?

The legal framework that has been put in place in recent years to regulate Uganda’s oil sector is especially

important in light of the widespread belief that resource wealth can, paradoxically, cripple development.

While countries such as Norway and Botswana have largely avoided the so-called ‘resource curse’, others

such as Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon have failed to translate natural resource windfalls into better

welfare for citizens. All too often, natural resource wealth is associated with a host of ‘bad’ development

outcomes, including disappointing economic growth, high levels of corruption, under-provision of public

goods, a lack of transparency and accountability, and civil conflict ( Sachs and Warner, 2001; Tornell and

Lane, 1998; Robinson, Torvik and Verdier, 2006; Brollo et al., 2012; Ross, 2012).

The specific focus of this project is on the effects of oil abundance on the political behavior of citi-

zens in response to policies and actions taken by their leaders when oil is discovered. A large literature on

the resource curse argues that resource wealth undermines transparent, accountable, and clean government.

One possible explanation for this ‘bad governance’ outcome is that natural resources provide politicians

with revenue that they can use to buy political support, either by providing public goods or private goodsto supporters. Resource wealth has thus been associated with patronage, clientelism, corruption, and in-

cumbency advantage (Robinson, Torvik and Verdier, 2006). In contrast, beginning with a large literature

on rentier states, scholars have argued that natural resources replace domestic taxation, which undermines

citizen motivation to take political action (Ross, 2001; Paler, 2013). From a political agency perspective, oil

can exacerbate information asymmetries between leaders and citizens, thus making it harder for citizens in

resource rich countries to hold politicians accountable effectively (Gadenne, 2014). Taken together, these

literatures suggest that oil weakens the will or ability of citizens to take action to demand transparency and

accountability in the governance of the resource sector.

By contrast, the literature on resources and civil conflict suggests that natural resource wealth can actu-

ally mobilize citizens to take (violent) political action. While there are again numerous possible mechanisms

(Humphreys, 2005), many have emphasized that natural resources can motivate rebels to capture the resource

revenue accruing to the central government, either by taking over the central government or seceding if lo-

cated in a resource rich region (LeBillon, 2001). Others have emphasized that civil conflict can emerge if

resources generate distributional grievances. Distributional grievances could be more likely to emerge in

producer regions if they feel a strong sense of ownership or entitlement to the resource, they are bearing an

(uncompensated) unequal share of the economic or environmental costs of extraction or when resource ex-

traction interacts with salient identity frames that can be used for mobilization (Aspinall, 2007; Ross, 2006;

Mähler and Pierskalla, 2015). Of course, the non-oil region could contest this if they feel that resources are

a national treasure and that the oil region is getting too great a share of the wealth. Of particular interest to

Uganda where production has not yet begun, evidence suggests that resource discovery on its own is capa-

ble of increasing the probability of civil war onset by 5–8 percentage points (Lei and Michaels, 2014) or of

extending the duration of civil conflict through the promise of future wealth ( Lujala, 2010). Even if the mere

discovery of oil does not necessarily lead to violent conflict, incumbent governments might try to pre-empt

challenges to their control over oil revenues by increasing military expenditures and repressing political op-

position (Cotet and Tsui, 2013). All in all, those focused on conflict have emphasized that resources—often

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depending on how benefits are shared and distributed geographically—can engender contentious and violent

political action.

As can be seen, explanations for the resource curse centered on governance or conflict suggest very dif-

ferent political action outcomes for citizens, but uniformly highlight the importance of Uganda’s oil discov-

ery for its political future. Governance stories suggest that resources cause a decrease in more conventional

forms of political action while conflict stories suggest that resources can increase violent and unconven-

tional types of political action. Whether oil increases or decreases political action at the individual-level

depends in large part on the actions taken by political leaders but also the overall context in a given country.

The majority of academic and policy studies have engaged this question of the resource curse only at the

macro-level, tracing the effects of resource wealth for whole political systems, without trying to unpack the

micro-level logic (an example of a notable exception is Paler (2013)). A central objective of this study is

to understand how the political and social context of Uganda and events to date since the oil discovery are

shaping the nature of political engagement on oil issues at the individual level. As such, it will offer a truly

unique perspective on the political process with regard to oil governance in Uganda and beyond.

This is particularly important in the Ugandan context because events since the oil discovery in 2006 raise

concerns about the potential for oil revenue to undermine good governance or contribute to distributional

conflict. As described in the preceding section, some are concerned that the 2013 Petroleum Act gives

excessive power to the executive and limits transparency and parliamentary oversight of the resource sector.

Others have pointed to the debate over how to divide the pie between the oil and non-oil districts, as well

as over how to define an ‘oil’ district, as potential fodder for the emergence of distributional grievances

down the road. This highlights an important point. On one hand, these are still (relatively) early days for

Uganda as it is still in the period before production has really begun. We thus would not expect a full-

blown resource curse at this stage. On the other hand, the institutional framework governing the oil sector

is being put in place now and that framework is very likely to shape the probability that a resource cursewill emerge. Thus, even though oil is a lower salience issue for citizens at present, as our evidence suggests,

it is crucially important to understand and facilitate citizen engagement so that the public can influence

the policy framework and take steps to prevent harmful laws from being put in place. Understanding the

extent to which citizens are engaged on this issue and the extent to which they can be mobilized to demand

transparent and accountable governance of the oil sector motivated the study design, described next.

4 Overview of the Study

The over-arching objective of this study is to understand how recent developments in Uganda are shapingcitizen knowledge of, attitudes towards, and behavior on oil-related issues. The study is motivated by three

questions in particular: To what extent is there variation—particularly geographic variation—in people’s

engagement on oil issues? To what extent can we say that oil is actually causing or contributing to this vari-

ation, which is the central concern of the literature on the resource curse? And, finally, to what extent might

it be possible to mitigate some of the detrimental effects of oil by providing citizens with better information

on the governance of the oil sector? We describe our approach to answering these three questions below.

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Understanding variation in engagement on oil

The first goal of the study is to study people’s knowledge of and engagement on oil issues—including their

demand for transparency and accountability in the oil sector—and how that engagement varies depending

on individual-level characteristics (such as gender and party affiliation) and geography (proximity to oil

production sites). We pay particularly close attention to variation in both political attitudes and engagementacross the oil and non-oil areas.

There are good reasons to expect that people in the oil region would be more engaged and knowledgeable

about oil governance at this stage. This is because exploration is happening in their backyards and they

have already faced early consequences of oil exploration. In addition, oil-region residents are likely to

hold stronger feelings of ownership or entitlement. We have less of an understanding of what to expect of

people in non-oil regions. On one hand, they could view oil as a national resource and be very engaged.

Alternatively, they could view this as a non-salient issue that primarily involves those in the oil region. Low

levels of engagement in the non-oil region would be problematic insofar as, according to the Public Finance

Management Act (2015), 93 percent of royalties (and 100 percent of other revenues such as taxes and newexploration licenses) will pass through the national budget. An active and engaged citizenry is likely crucial

to ensuring that those funds are spent and saved wisely. It is thus absolutely crucial to understand not only

geographic differences in engagement with respect to oil related issues, but also perceptions of the fair

distribution of revenue that might lead to the emergence of distributional grievances.

To accomplish this goal, we conducted a nationally representative survey of 2,714 people from 76 con-

stituencies and 304 villages in 52 districts across Uganda. The main goal of the survey was to assess Ugan-

dans’ current state of knowledge regarding the oil sector, their sense of ownership over natural resources,

their expectations regarding the impact of oil revenues on Uganda, and their preferences with respect to

the usage of oil revenues. Additionally the survey collected extensive data on demographics, public ser-

vice usage, political attitudes and participation history, etc. We further leverage this information to study

heterogeneity in knowledge, opinions and attitudes towards oil-related issues.

Hatchile Consult, a local survey firm, implemented the survey during a four-week period from July 23 to

August 19, 2014. Training of enumeration field staff took place in multiple phases from May through July

2014. A sample of 2,736 Ugandan citizens was randomly drawn using a multi-stage cluster sampling. Using

an updated sampling frame that includes all enumeration areas, or EAs (villages) in Uganda, the sample

was first clustered into 12 regions: Acholi, West Nile, Bunyoro, Toro, Kigezi, Ankole, Central, Kampala,

Busoga, Eastern, Karamoja and Lango.7 Within each region, the sample was proportionally stratified into

urban and rural using projected measures of population size. Besides clustering at the sub-region level,

the sample was also intended to provide insight into public opinion at the constituency level. To maximize

accessibility for local populations, the survey was translated into 12 different languages (Alur, Ankore,

Ateso, Japadhola, Lugbara, Luganda, Lumasaba, Lusoga, Luo, Karamajong, Kupsabiny, and Runyoro). The

survey received all necessary permissions from the government of Uganda, including approval from the

Uganda National Council for Science and Technology and the Office of the President.

7Our sampling frame follows the structure adopted in the 2011 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS2011) and the

2010 Uganda National Household Survey (2010UNHS).

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Given budget constraints, we randomly sampled 76 parliamentary constituencies (out of a total of 238

constituencies) within the regional strata. Half of the constituencies were selected from areas defined as

oil regions and half from non-oil regions.8 Within each block defined by oil-region status, parliamentary

constituencies were randomly selected with selection probabilities proportional to the most recent projected

population size. Within each sampled constituency, we further randomly sampled four EAs, and then nine

respondents per EA. The selection of individual respondents from each sampled EA followed a systematic

random process implemented by the field team. The total sample was thus expected to be 2, 736 (=76×4×9)

respondents. Due to some unavoidable issues in the field, 22 interviews (across different EAs) were not

completed such that the total number of interviews available for analysis is 2,714.9

The selection of 36 interviews per constituency resulted in an oversample at the sub-region level, which

has been addressed through data weighting throughout the analysis presented below. Face-to-face interviews

were then conducted with individual respondents following informed consent. The sampling frame used to

select individual respondents was also executed by the field team in such a way as to ensure gender parity

among those interviewed. This design is reflected in that men (1, 363 respondents) and women (1, 351) are

almost equally represented in the sample. The analysis of the descriptive data is presented in Sections 5–6.

The effect of oil

While the first goal of the project is primarily descriptive, the second goal of the project is to take things one

step further by trying to answer the question: To what extent has the discovery of oil actually influenced any

of the observed variation between oil and non-oil regions? The challenge with knowing the extent to which

oil is contributing to these differences is that there are clearly other factors correlated with both the location

of oil and the outcomes of interest. For instance, as is well known, oil was discovered in Western Uganda,

which historically has been a stronghold for President Museveni and the NRM. In order to test whether oil is

increasing support for Museveni (consistent with an incumbency advantage story) we would have to control

for prior levels of support and all other factors that are correlated with both the region and the outcomes of

interest.

We address this in Section 7 of the report in two ways. First, we use the fact that the location of oil

discoveries is plausibly exogenous. We have every reason to believe that discovery was based on geological

features first and foremost and was not endogenous to other aspects of those particular districts (e.g. they are

not more geographically accessible or more friendly towards oil exploration). This gives us a ‘treatment’

group of villages in oil-rich areas that are as-if randomly selected. Second, we then employ a statistical

matching procedure using 2002 census and 2006 election data to create a suitable counterfactual (‘control’)

8The oil regions in this study are Acholi, West Nile, Bunyoro, Ankole, Kigezi and Bukonjo/Bwamba and Toro.9Substitutions of enumeration areas were also necessary in seven cases. All four EAs in Kyamuswa County constituency had to

be substituted with four EAs in Ntenjeru County South constituency due to the prohibitively high cost for deploying and maintaining

a survey team on two remote islands in Kalangala district. Additionally, due to insecurity on the Uganda-South Sudan border at

the time of enumeration, Afoji village in West Moyo County had to be substituted with Fodia A village in the same constituency.

Meanwhile, Kaurikiakine village in Bokora County had to be substituted with Kasile A village in the same constituency due to poor

road conditions that prevented field vehicle access to the originally selected area. Finally, water transportation complications in

poor weather conditions forced the need to substitute Damba village in Buvuma Islands County with Zzinga B village in the same

constituency. All substitute villages (and the one substitute constituency) were selected using a systematic random process.

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group of villages outside the oil region. We then use standard regression analysis for our matched data to

determine the effects of oil on a number of attitudinal and behavioral outcome measures. 10

Importantly, matching and regression adjustment do not allow us to take a strictly causal interpretation

of the results, as there could always be differences that we failed to control for. But the 2002 census and

2006 electoral data are quite rich and enable us to control for a large number of economic (e.g. poverty and

development), social (e.g. religious and ethnic fractionalization), and political (e.g. support for president,

NRM) factors. As such, we believe this additional analysis, in conjunction with the descriptive results from

the survey, succeeds in getting us one step closer towards understanding the effects of an oil discovery on

knowledge, attitudes, and willingness to take political action.

The effect of information on political action

The third main goal of the study is to understand to what extent people can be mobilized to be politically

engaged with and informed about oil, even at this early stage. In particular, we are interested in studying

whether providing people with different types of information related to oil succeeds in mobilizing peopleto demand more transparency and accountability in oil governance. Studying the effects of information

dissemination is particularly important because resource wealth often is accompanied by greater opacity in

revenue and spending (Ross, 2012). Moreover, providing information is an important role for civil society

but there are open questions about what type of information will be effective at mobilizing citizens.

To test the extent to which different types of information on oil affect political engagement, we em-

bedded multiple information experiments within the survey. Specifically, we developed several different

information ‘treatments’ (each providing information on different aspects of oil governance) and randomly

assigned individuals in the sample to different ‘treatment’ or ‘control’ groups. Random assignment en-

sures balance in the distribution of individual-level characteristics across the different treatment and control

groups. Thus, the different groups have equal numbers of men and women, young and old, NRM supporters

and non-NRM supporters. By creating groups that are alike prior to the treatment implementation, we know

that any differences in outcome across groups after the information is provided is a result of the information

and not some underlying characteristics of the respondents.

In Section 8 we report the experimental results. We are particularly interested in the effects of the

information treatment on different aspects of political engagement, such as demand for information and

willingness to take political action. In light of the fact that survey measures are costless, we also present

results from a behavioral measure—respondent enrollment in a text messaging service—that captures actual

willingness to take action at some small personal cost. Finally, the literature on the resource curse suggests

that there is good reason to be concerned that different types of information can have adverse effects, for

instance by exacerbating distributional grievances or motivating people to take violent political action. We

therefore take care to examine the extent to which using information to mobilize citizens to hold politicians

accountable can have unintended negative consequences.

10For some of our robustness checks we also run analyses for villages only in the oil region, exploiting the effect of proximity to

the actual discoveries.

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5 Public Opinion in Uganda – Baseline Statistics

In this section we provide descriptive information on our sample of Ugandan citizens. Specifically we sum-

marize the political attitudes, expectations, preferences, policy priorities, and political behavior of Ugandans

about three years prior to oil extraction. Our goal is to draw attention to the current level of political engage-

ment and knowledge, which as we mention above, would be very important to track overtime. Knowing

where the public stands and what it knows can also help in the design of outreach activities as well in better

aligning government activities with the public’s preferences. Importantly, in this section we only present

information on where the public currently stands without attempting to causally link current attitudes and

behavior to the discovery of oil. As notes, this link will be made more explicit in Section 7.

Throughout the descriptive portions of the report results are presented along one or more of the following

key demographic dimensions: gender, oil region status, and political party identification. The breakdown to

key subgroups of interest is illustrative, but should not be taken to necessarily represent a causal relationship.

For example, consider a finding that those identifying with the NRM hold some different attitudes as com-

pared to those identifying with one of the opposition parties. Such a finding is illustrative and interesting butit should not be understood as if this difference is necessarily caused by variation in party attachment. This

is because difference in political attitudes can be the cause rather than the effect of party identification, or

because there may be other factors (e.g., urbanization and education) that cause people to both adopt some

attitudes and to feel close to one party or another. We now turn to explain in further detail how the subgroup

strata oil region status and party identification have been constructed.

Oil-region status has been assigned based on whether or not the enumeration area was in one of the

following oil regions: Acholi, West Nile, Bukonjo/Bwamba, Bunyoro, Ankole, Kigezi and Toro. All re-

spondents living in one of these regions were coded as having oil area status and all of those living outside

of these regions were coded as having non-oil area status. Due to the oversampling strategy, 50% of respon-

dents come from oil areas, while 50% were sampled from non-oil areas. Portions of this report expound

even further upon respondents’ location relative to oil in order to gain more insight into the importance of

this factor with regard to citizen attitudes and behavior at baseline.

In addition to gender and oil-region status, the third variable used throughout the descriptive portion of

this report is party identification. Party identification is a binary variable which gets the value of one for

the 59% of respondents who (self-reported) as voting for the National Resistance Movement’s Member of

Parliament (MP) candidate in the 2011 elections, and a value of zero for the remaining 41% of respondents.

Vote choice in the MP election is used as an indicator of political party identification rather than vote choice

in the presidential election because it offers slightly more variation and insight into individual preferences.

The presidential race in Uganda was not competitive in 2011, and there are some reasons to believe that

people feel a stronger pressure to vote (or report voting) for President Museveni regardless of their “true”

party affiliation. Since parliamentary elections are, on average, more competitive they are a better indication

of voter preferences.11

11Importantly, voting for the NRM MP candidate is still a good predictor of presidential vote choice, as only 6% of those report

voting for the NRM MP candidate did not vote for Museveni in the presidential election. Meanwhile, 15% of those who report

voting for President Museveni did not vote for the NRM’s MP candidate.

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The relationship between oil region status and party identification is presented in Figure 2. For each of

the four cells of the mosaic plot, we report the share of respondents out of the entire sample and the number

of respondents in parentheses. For example, 32% respondents (859 interviewees) both affiliate with the

NRM and reside in an oil region. By contrast, the share of non-NRM supporters that live in the oil region

is only 18% (495 respondents). For other background characteristics of the survey respondents, such as

ethnicity, religion, educational attainment and literacy rate, please refer to the appendix. Importantly, since

we use survey (probability) weights, results reported throughout this report represent population estimates

rather than merely the attitudes and perceptions of the sample.

Party ID

O i l

Non−NRM

O i l

N o n − o i l

NRM

23%

(630)

18%

(495)

27%

(728)

32%

(859)

Figure 2: Relationship between oil proximity and party ID.

5.1 Government Services and Policy Priorities

This section highlights Ugandans’ views of the quality of public services in their communities. This section

also presents and discusses those areas of need that Ugandans feel require the greatest and most immediate

attention from government officials. These data are important to measure in baseline in order to examine

whether citizens’ evaluation of government services and their preferences for government policy prioritieschange over time with increased oil production.

Quality of Public Services

Sampled respondents were asked to rate the overall quality of the following public services in their com-

munities: the government primary school system (UPE), government health centers and hospitals, roads

and bridges, access to clean water, safety from crime and violence, and the Agricultural Extension Services

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(NAADS). Citizens’ ratings were elicited on a five-point scale: (1) very bad, (2) somewhat bad, (3) just ok,

(4) somewhat good, and (5) very good. Population estimates are presented in Figure 3 below.

As Figure 3 makes clear, Ugandans have a low evaluation of the quality of key social services. Even

the highest ranked public services—safety from crime and violence (mean of 2.67) and access to clean

water (mean of 2.59)—are evaluated to be below “just okay”. Ugandans’ rating of other public services is

even more troubling; for example, the average rating for quality of the Agricultural Extension Services is

only 2.02, placing it almost exactly at a rating of “somewhat bad” overall. With the majority of Ugandans

dependent primarily upon work in the agricultural sector, this is particularly noteworthy.

Perceptions of the quality of key infrastructural installments also do not fair well. Overall, Ugandans

report low quality ratings with regard to roads and bridges (mean of 2.16) and government health centers

and hospitals (mean of 2.19), respectively. Ugandans also view the quality of the government school system

(UPE) to be closer to “somewhat bad” than to “just okay” at a mean response of 2.30.

35

25

2016

4

mean=2.30

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t

Very Bad Somewhat Bad Just Okay Somewhat Good Very Good

Government School System

38

27

1416

4

mean=2.19

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t


Government Health Centers/Hospitals

40

25

15 16

3

mean=2.16

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t


Roads/Bridges

33

1720 21

10

mean=2.59

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t


Access to Clean Water

2225 25

16

11

mean=2.67

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t


Safety from Crime/Violence47

25

12 11

5

mean=2.02

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t


Agricultural Extension Services (NAADS)

Quality of Public Services in the Community

Figure 3: Reported quality of public services in the community across all respondents.

Oil-region status is correlated with self-reported quality measures of public services (Figure 4). Con-

sider, for example, crime and violence, for which the mean quality rating in the oil regions (2.87) is signif-

icantly higher than the quality rating in non-oil regions (2.60). Similarly, relatively large discrepancies are

found in the quality ratings of UPE, government health services and NAADS. By contrast, quality ratings

are somewhat worse in the oil regions for water access and infrastructure. In order to conclude, however,

that the quality of government services are, in fact, higher in oil districts, additional data would need to be

brought into the analysis (e.g., budget data, objective measures of health and education inputs and outputs).

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37

29

25 2420 21

14

21

4 5

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t

Very Bad Somewhat Bad Jus t Okay Somewhat Good Very Good

Govt. School System

Non-Oil

Oil 42

3027

29

1317

15

20

3 4

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t


Govt. Health Centers/Hospitals

Non-Oil

Oil

38

46

27

21

15 1517

14

3 3

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t


Roads/Bridges

30

38

1715

2118

2218

9 11

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t



2418

2624

2623

14

21

1013

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r

c e n t



39

27

23

9

16

9

18

5 5

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r

c e n t



(by Oil Region Status)


Figure 4: Reported quality of public services in the community by proximity to oil.

3733

2624

1921

15 17

35

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e

n t


Govt. School System

Non-NRM

NRM 4037

25 29

1613

1517

4 3

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e

n t


Govt. Health Centers/Hospitals

Non-NRM

NRM

37

43

25 26

14 15

20

13

3 3

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t


Roads/Bridges

32 33

14

19 1822 22 20

14

6

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e n t



23 2225 25

2327

16 1713

9

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e

n t



46

2923

8

1410 12

4 5

0

10

20

30

40

50

P e r c e

n t



(by Party ID)


Figure 5: Reported quality of public services in the community by party identification.

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Most Important Issues to Address

Survey respondents were also asked to identify the policy domains that they would like the government to

prioritize. Past studies have used the response to this question as a proxy measure for the extent to which

an issue is politically salient for voters. Respondents were first asked to name the most important issue

for the government to address, followed by what they believed is the second-most important issue. Thoseanswers have been combined below to reflect responses that were named by citizens as either first-most or

second-most important priority. These responses were unprompted by interviewers and were subsequently

categorized. Our main goal in eliciting responses to this question is to examine whether, at baseline, Ugan-

dans view oil related issues (e.g., land compensation, regulatory framework) as politically salient.

Our analysis reveals two key findings. First, Ugandans do not view oil governance as politically salient

even though we have interviewed respondents in the midst of parliamentary debates regarding the regulation

of the oil sector and the management of oil revenues. Indeed oil was mentioned as a key policy priority by

less than 1 percent of survey respondents. This suggests that Ugandan constituents have thus far failed to

internalize the stakes involved in different policy proposals of how to regulate the oil sector and manage oilrevenues. We believe that tracking the saliency of oil governance over time is of great importance. This is

because political actors have greater degrees of freedom to advance interests other than those of the public

when voters do not view the issues at stake as politically salient.

Second, we find that overall Ugandans prioritize improvements in the provision of basic public service

over governance-related issues and over the management of the economy. As Figure 6 shows, almost a fifth

of Ugandans (18%) report a preference for prioritizing water quality, infrastructure and education, followed

by agriculture (8%) and healthcare (8%). By contrast, core governance issues such as corruption (4%) and

state capacity (2%) are far less salient to Ugandans. Interestingly we do not find a significant correlation

between the quality rating of public services and the extent to which Ugandans express preference for

government prioritization of the service ( R2 =−0.02). This likely reflects the fact that Ugandans consider

not merely the current level of service provision, but also its importance for their welfare. This can explain,

for example, why access to clean water is highly prioritized, notwithstanding being ranked (relatively) ‘high’

in terms of its quality (see above Figure 3).

Interestingly, as shown in Figure 7, large discrepancies in stated preferences over government prioriti-

zation emerge when the data is analyzed by oil region status. For example, a far greater share of oil region

residents favors addressing water access (25% to non-oil area’s 16%) and infrastructure (24% to non-oil

area’s 16%). This finding is consistent with the very low rating for water access and infrastructure among

oil-region residents (Figure 4). Less salient issues such as corruption and taxes are more likely to be priori-

tized by residents of non-oil regions (5% and 4% respectively) than oil region residents (2% and 1%). This

may reflect, in part, the positive correlation between NRM support and oil status.

When broken down by sex, preferences over policy prioritization vary only slightly (Figure 8). As

expected, a larger share of women (21%) than men (16%) prioritize access to clean water, reflecting the fact

that women are also more likely to be tasked with fetching water for household consumption. By contrast,

a slightly larger share of male respondents is concerned about improving infrastructure (20% to women’s

17%), reflecting the fact that men are more likely to be commuting to and from their village.

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18 1818

8 8

54

3 32 2 2 1 1 1 1

4

0

5

10

15

20

P e r c e n t

W a t e

r q u a

l i t y

I n f r a s

t r u c t u

r e

E d u c

a t i o n

F a r m

i n g / a g

r i c u l t

u r e

H e a l t

h c a r

e

C r i m

e / s e c

u r i t y /

v i o l e n

c e

C o r r u

p t i o n

/ b r i b e

r y T a

x e s

F o o d

s h o r t a g

e

L a n d

i s s u

e s

S p e c

i a l p o

p u l a t

i o n s

L o c a

l g o v

t . c a p

a c i t y

L a c k

o f i n f o

f r o m

g o v t .

C o m m

o d i t y

p r i c e

s

J o b s

/ b u s i n

e s s d

e v .

G e t t

i n g g o

o d s t

o m a r k e

t O t

h e r

Most Important Issue for Government to Address

Figure 6: Most important issues for government to address (population estimates).

16

25

16

24

19

15

8 8 9

6 6

3

5

2

4

1

3

1

2

1 1

4

2

1 1

1 1 2

1 2

12

4 4

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

P e r c e n t

W a t e

r q u a

l i t y

I n f r a

s t r u c

t u r e

E d u c

a t i o n

F a r m i n g

/ a g r i c

u l t u r

e

H e a l t

h c a r

e

C r i m

e / s e c

u r i t y /

v i o l e n

c e

C o r r u p

t i o n / b

r i b e r

y T a

x e s

F

o o d s

h o r t a

g e

L a n d

i s s u

e s

S p e c i a l

p o p u

l a t i o n

s

L o c a l g o

v t . c a

p a c i t

y

L a c k o f i

n f o f r o m

g o v t .

C o m m o

d i t y p

r i c e s

J o b s / b u

s i n e s

s d e v

.

G e t t i n

g g o o d

s t o m

a r k e t

O t h e

r

(by Oil Region Status)


Non-Oil

Oil

Figure 7: Most important issues for government to address, by oil proximity.

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16

21

20

17 17

18

8

9

89

4

6 5

3 3 32 3 3

1 2

2 3

0

21 1

1 11

1 1

4 4

0

5

10

15

20

25

P e r c e n t

W a t e

r q u a

l i t y

I n f r

a s t r u

c t u r e

E d u c

a t i o n

F a r m i n

g / a g r i

c u l t u

r e

H e a l t

h c a r e

C r i m

e / s e c u

r i t y / v i

o l e n c

e

C o r r u p t i

o n / b r

i b e r y

T a x e

s

F o

o d s h

o r t a g

e

L a n d

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e s

S p e c i a

l p o p

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n s

L o c a l g

o v t . c

a p a c

i t y

L a c k

o f i n f o

f r o m

g o v t .

C o m m

o d i t y

p r i c e

s

J o b s / b u s

i n e s s

d e v .

G e t t i n

g g o o d s

t o m a r k

e t O t

h e r

(by Gender)


Male

Female

Figure 8: Most important issues for government to address, by gender.

5.2 Political Attitudes and Behavior

In this section we describe citizens’ baseline political knowledge, news consumption, and attitudes towards

government performance. This baseline information serves an important benchmark against which to com-

pare possible temporal changes in citizen attitudes and involvement in politics as oil extraction becomes

more salient.

Basic Political Knowledge

To measure baseline levels of basic political knowledge, survey respondents were asked to identify the

name of his/her (1) LC3 Councilor, (2) District chairperson, (3) Constituency MP, (4) the main opposition

candidate in the 2011 presidential election, and (5) the current Speaker of Parliament. Respondents were

also asked (6) how many terms the president of Uganda can serve in office according to the constitution. All

responses were coded as either correct or incorrect and then summed to yield a maximum possible “political

knowledge” score of 6. Results are shown in Figure 9. Only 7% failed to answer correctly a single question,

while 11% answered all six questions correctly. The mean number of correct responses was 3.33; a plurality

of respondents (51%) answered correctly at least four questions.

Consistent with results reported in past studies (e.g., Grossman, Humphreys and Sacramone-Lutz (2014)),

political knowledge in Uganda is subject to a wide gender gap. While 60% of men correctly answered at

least four questions (mean correct responses equals 3 .67), only 40% of women in the sample did so (mean

2.96). We also find large gaps in political knowledge as a function of party identification, with NRM af-

filiates (mean 3.64) being, on average, more knowledgeable than non-NRM affiliates (mean 2 .97). This

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7

10

16 17

24

16

11

mean=3.33

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

P e r c

e n t

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Correct Answers (out of 6)

Overall Correct Answers

7 7

10 10

16 16 16

19

24 23

15 16

12

9

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

P e r c e n t

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Correct Answers by Oil Region Status

Non-Oil

Oil

86

15

6

20

12

17 16

20

26

11

20

9

13

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

P e r c e n t

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Correct Answers by party ID

Non-NRM

NRM

5

9 9 10 11

22

14

19

25

2220

11

15

7

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

P e r c e n t

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Correct Answers by Gender

Male

Female

Basic Political Knowledge

Figure 9: Distribution of basic political knowledge scores.

is somewhat counterintuitive given the higher human capital of those identifying with the opposition in

Uganda, but is consistent with the idea that higher educated constituents withdraw from politics in authori-

tarian regimes (Croke et al., 2015). We do not, however, find significant differences in political knowledge

by oil region status.

News Consumption

Political knowledge is, in part, a function of the consumption of political information. We thus report in

Figure 10 news consumption in Uganda across the two key media sources: radio and newspaper. Media

consumption is a function of both the ability to access news (e.g. ownership of radio and newspaper distri-

bution networks) as well as one’s interest in politics.

First, as is the case in many developing countries, Ugandans are significantly more likely to consume

news via radio than through print media. Whereas a majority of Ugandans (52%) listen to news via radio

on a daily basis, only 5% report reading a newspaper daily. Second, given the stark gender gap in political

knowledge, we also present news consumption by sex. We find, unsurprisingly, relatively large gender gapsin news consumption. News consumption does not seem to differ much as a function of oil-region status nor

political identification.

Satisfaction with Government Performance

In this subsection we provide insight into citizens’ satisfaction with the performance of various state organs,

their trust in political actors, their perception of corruption, and the intensity of those political attitudes.

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9 104 5

7 8

2627

5350

0

20

40

60

80

P e r c e n t

N e v e

r

A f e

w t i m

e s a y e a

r

A f e

w t i m

e s a m o n t h

A f e

w t i m

e s a w e e k

E v e r y d a

y

Radio

Non-Oil

Oil

9 104 5

8 7

2825

5154

0

20

40

60

80

P e r c e n t

N e v e

r

A f e

w t i m

e s a y e a

r

A f e

w t i m

e s a m o n t h

A f e

w t i m

e s a w e e k

E v e r y d a

y

Radio

Non-NRM

NRM

6

13

3 6 6 9

2726

58

46

0

20

40

60

80

P e r c e n t

N e v e

r

A f e

w t i m

e s a y e a

r

A f e

w t i m

e s a m o n t h

A f e

w t i m

e s a w e e k

E v e r y d a

y

Radio

Male

Female

47

66

1411

19

11 14

8 5 5

0

20

40

60

80

P e r c

e n t

N e v e

r

A f e

w t i �

Oil Uganda Policy Report

Documents

Transcript of Oil Uganda Policy Report