Criminal activity continues to pose a threat to security in the war-ravaged northern Uganda, a November UN update reports. "As in previous months, criminal activities continued to pose the gravest threat to individual security in northern Uganda. Several incidents involving armed robbers were recorded during the month," the UN report says. However, the report says that the security situation regarding the LRA rebels remains calm. In Karamoja though, hostilities have persisted as the Ugandan army continues its forced disarmament campaign. The UN recorded 20 cattle raids by Karamajong fighters during November as well as eleven deaths and two abductions. Read more at The Monitor.

The UN humanitarian report for November says that while the general security situation has remained calm, there are very uneven patterns of return by internally displaced people. In the districts of Lira and Oyam, eight IDP camps are currently being closed and fewer than 1% of people remain in camps. However, in Acholi, only 4% of IDPs have returned to their homes. Most of these say that they will not return home until a final peace agreement is signed, guaranteeing their safe return. This demonstrates that peace in northern Uganda remains far more elusive than suggested by some media stories. Moreover, for both IDPs and returnees, a series of security concerns remain, including poor access to education and medical facilities, rampant gender-based violence, lacking police presence, and increasing levels of crime.

The Ugandan government has agreed to not allocate large tracts of Acholi land to investors until local residents have returned to their homes from displaced persons camps and can have a say in economic recovery processes. Acholi leaders and civil society have been vocal on the issue in recent weeks after the Ugandan government proposed allocating a Ugandan Asian sugar company 40,000 hectares of land in Amuru district for sugarcane growth. Livingstone Okello-Okello, one of the Acholi MPs who met with the Ugandan Prime Minister yesterday and secured the agreement, said, "We have agreed with the government that our people should not be ambushed with this sugar factory before peace returns. We are happy that even Madhvani (sugar company) attended this meeting and an agreement on the matter has been reached." Read more at The Monitor.

In today’s New Vision, Norbert Mao, Gulu district’s highest elected leader, writes that displaced persons should be allowed to return home before investment and industrialization projects in northern Uganda that require large land concessions are considered. Mao argues that northerners are not necessarily against investment and industrialization, but should be given the chance to determine and shape the direction of recovery efforts – and that return from decades of displacement is a necessary precondition for them to be able to do so. His comments come in the wake of a controversy after a proposal to allot 40,000 hectares for a sugarcane project in Amuru district was met with opposition from northern MPs. Read more at The New Vision, or read this excellent report written by the Land and Equity Movement of Uganda.

President Museveni is again set to meet Acholi leaders over industrialisation and his plans to offer land to investors in northern Uganda. Richard Todwong, special presidential assistant, said Museveni will meet with the landowners, opinion, cultural leaders and members of Parliament from the region later this month. He will explain the government programme to encourage industrialisation in the north, such as the recent plans for a Ugandan Asian sugar company to open a factory in Amuru district. This comes after Acholi MPs expressed sharp opposition earlier this week to these plans. Read more at The Monitor.

The UN last week launched a $374 million appeal to donors to fund humanitarian and recovery work in Uganda in 2008, focusing primarily on conflict-affected regions in northern and northeastern Uganda. The projects included in the appeal have two overarching objectives – saving lives and facilitating recovery – that reflect the continued transition from emergency humanitarian interventions to rebuilding viable homes and communities. Early recovery efforts must learn from struggles in 2007, when mortality and malnutrition rates in Lango actually dropped as people left IDP camps for home areas that lacked adequate services due to poor humanitarian coordination. Read about the appeal at IRIN News or download the full appeal here.

To read more facts and figures included in the appeal about gender-based violence, access to education and malnutrition rates click below.

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Acholi MPs yesterday expressed sharp opposition to a proposal to give 40,000 hectares in Amuru district of northern Uganda to a Ugandan Asian sugar company for a sugarcane plantation. The MPs spoke out against the project after doing a consultative tour in northern Uganda. Earlier this year a government proposal to allocate part of Mabira Forest Reserve to a (different) Ugandan Asian sugar company in southern Uganda was met by mass protests, which led to incidents of violence against Asian communities. Read more at The Monitor.

Although outside investment in northern Uganda will be an integral part of recovery efforts in coming years, efforts to allocate large tracts of land to investors will likely be met with suspicion and possibly hostility by northerners. Land is a precious asset to northerners, and some fear that the Ugandan government plans to industrialize and modernize the north will lead to loss of land - as especially as only 2% of Acholi have been able to return to their homes and land. Local civil society groups have called on the Ugandan government to allow northerners to return home before attempting major changes to land tenure and agricultural patterns, in order to gain local input and trust in recovery efforts.