CIVICUS discusses accountability and citizen engagement in Uganda with Michael Katagaya, co-founder and team leader of Evidence and Methods Lab (EML), a civil society organisation (CSO) that uses technology to collect people’s feedback on public services. EML is a CIVICUS Digital Democracy Initiative partner.

Uganda’s 15 January election, held under a nationwide internet shutdown, extended President Yoweri Museveni’s 40-year rule. Many Ugandans no longer expect the state to respond to their needs. Corruption scandals keep surfacing and public services are failing, but people who speak out risk being arrested or abducted. The CSOs that help people hold institutions to account are under pressure. Aid cuts have drained their funding, several were suspended days before the election and the Protection of Sovereignty Act, signed in May, tightens state control over the international funding most of them rely on.

What’s the relationship between citizens and the state in Uganda today?

It’s very tense, and to understand why, you must go back to independence in 1962. At the time, every Ugandan was full of hope. Our first prime minister, Milton Obote, promised that the government would protect our lives and give us the chance to advance. But leader after leader has broken that promise. Under Idi Amin, between 1971 and 1979, up to half a million people are estimated to have been killed. When Yoweri Museveni took power in 1986, he talked about ‘fundamental change’ and said Africa’s problem was leaders who stay in power too long. Ugandans fell in love with him, and for a few years the institutions seemed to work, but his government soon started behaving like the ones before it.

Museveni had taken up arms claiming the 1980 election was rigged, yet his own wins have repeatedly been challenged in court. Judges have found irregularities, just not enough to overturn the results. When a government knows it can rig elections, it knows people can’t vote it out, so it has no reason to deliver services. People have stopped expecting much and corruption has reached levels never seen before. Every government audit uncovers money that has simply disappeared.

On top of that, people are afraid. Every election brings arrests, beatings and killings of opposition members, and activists are still abducted in unmarked vans we call ‘drones’, just as in Amin’s time. The space to speak out keeps shrinking. We used to have open-air radio debates called ebimeeza, where anyone could criticise the government, until they were banned. Political parties are disrupted and organisations and media outlets are shut down simply for telling the truth. In June, the army chief ordered the closure of Nation Media Group’s Ugandan newspapers, radio and television stations. So hardly anyone dares to complain.

What led you to co-found EML?

I’ve experienced poor public services first-hand. When people talk about a mother taking her child to hospital, finding no medicine and waiting hours for a doctor, I know that scenario very well, because at one point I was that child. I’ve driven on the same potholed roads, gone through a poor education system and seen crimes go uninvestigated because someone bribed the police.

Governments are supposed to deliver services openly and be accountable, but many don’t, so someone has to bridge the gap between people and the state. That’s where civil society comes in. A lot of Ugandans no longer care, because they don’t think anything will change. I want to help restore the hope that if you follow up and hold institutions to account, someone will respond. Ultimately, I want to contribute to building a country that works for all Ugandans.

How does EML help people hold institutions to account?

We start by giving people information. Our laws are written in English, which many Ugandans don’t speak, so we simplify them, and we turn data from audit and public finance institutions into something people can use to see what the government does with their money.

As government data isn’t always reliable, we turn to people’s experiences and collect their feedback. When a ministry funds a hospital, the hospital reports back that it did a good job, but nobody asks the patients. Through our #WeShapeGov programme, citizen champions visit hospitals, police stations and other facilities and ask people to rate the service they received. In a recent study, around 85 per cent of feedback was about health and close to 90 per cent of that was negative. Most complaints were about medicine not being available, poor staff attitudes and requests for bribes. The police and justice sectors also showed a pattern of absenteeism, bribery and a lack of basic materials. We send our findings to the institutions responsible. Some respond and some don’t, but at least we know what’s happening on the ground.

We also bring together people, the private sector and public institutions. In 2024, when Ugandans were exposing corruption, failing hospitals, insecurity and potholed roads in online ‘exhibitions’, we gathered thousands of posts, put them before officials at a public meeting and discussed ways of fixing these issues.

What role does technology play in your work?

As a civic tech organisation, we use technology at every stage. For example, it helps us turn complex information, such as our assessment of cabinet ministers, into simple visuals we share online.

Technology also lowers the cost of speaking up. Where complaining can get you arrested, someone who wouldn’t dare walk into parliament or a police station can post a TikTok video or a message on Twitter/X. Ugandans abroad can help raise awareness by speaking up online too.

It also makes collecting feedback much cheaper. Our champions have phones, so their data reaches us almost instantly. And it lets us listen at scale. During this year’s election, our champions gathered feedback from around 500 people in person, and technology let us bring in over 1,000 posts and articles from online platforms.

Still, technology only carries the message. Artificial intelligence can help us sort thousands of complaints, even in local languages, but someone on the other end has to be willing to act. If an institution has no intention of responding, we’ve just found a more sophisticated way of being ignored.

What makes institutions act on what people tell them?

Often, it’s politics. Around elections, things suddenly start moving. Go to a typical upcountry district during a campaign and you’ll see machines paving roads, because the president is visiting and the government needs votes. Once the election is over, the interest fades. And the gap between politicians and people isn’t unique to Uganda. A 2025 Pew Research Center survey across 25 countries found that a median of 46 per cent of people think few or none of their elected officials understand everyday people’s needs.

People’s own involvement matters too. Years ago, I saw communities sink boreholes together with CSOs and state institutions. One person donated land, another fed the workers and another volunteered to maintain the borehole. But where people aren’t interested, it doesn’t work. We’ve seen people use mosquito nets the government handed out to go fishing, which gives the government less reason to hand them out again.

In the end, governments listen to pressure. When they know people are aware, will push back and can’t be taken for granted, they respond differently.

What support does civil society in Uganda need?

It’s a very tough time. Since the US Agency for International Development closed, funding has dried up. Many groups now raise money locally.

We’ve lost funding as well, including funding committed to a project that ended when a partner’s wider programme in Uganda was halted. So, while we mobilise resources, we’ve cut costs and started working in other countries, such as Kenya and Tanzania. We also offer services such as capacity strengthening in monitoring, evaluation, research and learning, and training through our new Civic Engagement Academy.

I wish I could spend a day without thinking about fundraising. What we need most is flexible, long-term core funding rather than small project grants, which don’t let you pay decent salaries or keep good staff. We also need solidarity. Regional networks cushion us from pressure in any one country. When there’s trouble in Tanzania, colleagues in Kenya help. And international partners can keep speaking up for the rights of CSOs to operate, journalists to write freely and people to protest peacefully without being arrested or beaten.

Some funders are afraid to back this work because they think the regime won’t listen. But even where there’s no prospect of political change and many people have given up on voting the government out, there are still people within the system who care and want to make a difference, however small. We’ve seen it at the local level, with hospital administrators and judges acting on people’s feedback in ways that don’t threaten the state. That kind of work can survive and even thrive. However difficult things get, there are still spaces to engage, and making the most of them has become a real opportunity for us.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.