Uganda Oil Pipeline Project Will Impoverish Thousands - HRW

The French fossil-fuel giant TotalEnergies' planned oil pipeline in East Africa will exacerbate the global climate crisis, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 47-page report, Our Trust is Broken": Loss of Land and Livelihoods for Oil Development in Uganda, documents the land acquisition process for one of the largest fossil fuel infrastructure projects under construction anywhere in the world.

The report is based primarily on over 90 interviews that Human Rights Watch conducted in early 2023, including with 75 displaced families in 5 districts of Uganda.

TotalEnergies is the principal company involved through its Ugandan subsidiary TotalEnergies EP Uganda, alongside the China National Offshore Oil Company and the state-owned oil companies of Uganda and Tanzania.

Human Rights Watch found that the impact of multiyear delays has been compounded by unclear communications as to whether farmers can continue to use the land to harvest coffee, bananas, and other cash crops in the interim. Consequently, the land acquisition project has caused severe financial hardships for thousands of Ugandan farmers, including heavy household debt, food insecurity, and an inability to pay school fees, causing many children to drop out of school. Atacama Consulting and Newplan Group managed the land acquisition process on behalf of TotalEnergies EP Uganda.

Because of the opposition to EACOP from civil society organizations and climate activists in Uganda and around the world, many financial institutions and insurance companies have made a public commitment to not support the pipeline the report says.