Friends or Foes? Local Government - NGO Partnerships in Uganda: A Case of Kabarole District

This paper explores Local Governments - Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) partnerships in decentralised system of governance. It analyses the influence of the institutional frameworks that govern the local government – NGO relationships and their influence on partnerships and nature of relationships that exists between them. The paper examines the interests that drive the LGs and NGOs into partnership and the factors that are critical in determining the nature of their relationships. The paper uses the theories of Co-production and Co-governance to analyse the findings of the study. As the findings of the study reveal, when local governments and NGOs partner, they start relationships. These relationships seem to be characterised by harmony in cases of co-production and conflict in case of co-governance. Most studies on partnerships focus on bilateral partnerships but this study focuses on multiple-stakeholders partnerships. The study adopts an exploratory research method. Key informant interviews were conducted with officials from Kabarole district local government and two NGOs. Apart from the interviews documents were reviewed. The findings reveal that institutional frameworks are critical in determining the nature of relationship that can exist between LGs and NGOs, the interests that drive LGs and NGOs to partner seem to a large extent differ and the nature of their relationships are mainly determined by factors such as accountability mechanisms, information sharing, leadership and personal relationships, extent of involvement, legitimacy and influence of external actors. The analysis and conclusions are based on a field study conducted in Kabarole district, Western Uganda.