Legal Restrictions and the Shrinking Civic Space: A Comparison of the Situation for Ugandan NGOs in the Oil and Gas Sector Between 2012 and 2018

Abstract: Organizations in the Ugandan civil society sector have faced legal and extra-legal restrictions on their operations, a phenomenon referred to as the ‘shrinking civic space’ which has been on the rise globally. The Ugandan government has taken several measures towards controlling the operational space of, especially organizations working on issues of human rights, anti-corruption, electoral democracy, and social justice and accountability issues in the oil and gas sector. This thesis presents a within-case comparison over time, by analyzing the shrinking civic space of non-governmental organizations working in the oil and gas sector in Uganda between years 2012-2018. The aim is to review the changes of the national legal framework that took place in 2013, 2016 and 2017, and compare the extra-legal and legal restrictions that oil and gas NGOs have faced before and after the alterations. This study finds that while the legal restrictions imposed in 2013-2017 went further than the laws previously in place, the NGOs in the oil and gas sector already faced similar restrictions before – implying that the implementation of the new laws was part of formalizing restrictions of the civic space which were already practiced.