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Paper short abstract:

The paper will explore how various stakeholders including policy makers in Uganda deploy power, the art of not knowing and strategic ignorance when tackling epidemics in Uganda.

Paper long abstract:

Uganda has a rich history in preparing and tackling disease epidemics including ebola, malaria and cholera. An emergency and humanitarian crisis framework is evoked whenever Uganda is anticipating or experiencing such virulent and deadly diseases. For instance in 2000/2001, some humanitarians and development partners managed the ebola crisis in a war-torn northern Uganda. When a country like Uganda declares a state of emergency due to a disease threat, it means that it will relinquish its power to contain the situation to humanitarians, development partners and pharmaceutical companies. In Uganda the preceding stakeholders have found a niche at the National Emergency Operation Centre to design strategies and intervene in anyway they deem fit. Our fourteen months ethnographic data suggests that various stakeholders have resorted to the art of not knowing and strategic ignorance to tackle disease threats. Although the approach makes their work manageable, villagers view their activities as detached, irrelevant, contradictory and inconveniencing. We argue that disease response mechanisms focussing on one-disease at a time, and a preference for quick fixes, medical technologies and promoting awareness through colourful posters amount to a reactionary response, are unsustainable and too costly for low-income settings. It is better to ensure health systems strengthening for future efficacious epidemics containment and response.