Violent conflicts are a major constraint to food security and agricultural development in many
regions of the developing world. Rebuilding agriculture is a primary task after a conflict comes to
an end yet agricultural recovery projects are challenging to implement because governance
challenges such as corruption and elite capture are wide spread in post-conflict projects. This thesis
presents a detailed case study of such governance challenges taking two agricultural recovery
projects in Northern Uganda as examples.
Northern Uganda has been affected by more than two decades ofwar resulting not only in the deaths
of combatants and civilians but also indisplacementand migration, destruction of livelihoods and
demolition of both social and physical infrastructure. As Northern Uganda is mainly an agrarian
region, programs that promote food security and agricultural development play an important role in
rebuilding the livelihoods of the war affected population.The thesis focuses on two large-scale
projects that have been implemented in the post-conflict situation of Northern Uganda: the Northern
Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF) a specific post-conflict recovery project and the National
Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) which is an extension reform project that is implemented
throughout Uganda, but plays a particularly important role for the agricultural recovery of the
conflict-affected region. Since governance problems tend to be more challenging in large scale
operations, these two projects offer a unique opportunity to analyze the opportunities and challenges
of the different implementation and targeting mechanisms used by these projects.