EACOP: why a pipeline RAP must manage land, livelihoods and expectations together

This is a public-record case study. It uses the project context named in the title to examine a RAP problem; it does not claim access to a project register, confidential settlement or unpublished audit. Project documents and current lender requirements should be checked before relying on it.

Thesis

EACOP illustrates why long linear infrastructure requires an evidence chain that survives geography, contractors and project phases. The corridor crosses Uganda and Tanzania, creating a setting in which national law governs local land interests while project-level lender standards can impose a common safeguards framework. In Uganda, the Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Act 2013, s. 139, provides for fair and reasonable compensation for disturbance of rights and damage to crops, trees, buildings and works associated with petroleum activities and also addresses restoration of affected land. IFC PS5 expressly includes easements and rights of way within land acquisition and recognises economic displacement arising from loss of access. World Bank ESS5 similarly covers physical and economic displacement and requires appropriate mitigation and livelihood restoration. The central thesis is that chainage is not merely an engineering reference; it can become the backbone of the social evidence system. Every affected interest should be traceable from chainage or parcel through claimant, tenure or use basis, asset, valuation, entitlement, payment, construction damage, contractor obligation, reinstatement, grievance and final verification. Without that chain, regional dashboards can report impressive percentages while unresolved local cases disappear between packages. The project-management implication is equally important: the record must survive contractor handovers and phase transitions. A person should not have to prove the same loss again because the responsible contractor changed. Authorities: Uganda Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Act 2013 s. 139; Uganda Constitution Art. 26; Tanzania Land Act 1999 and Village Land Act 1999; IFC PS5; World Bank ESS5; IFC Good Practice Handbook.

The legal issue in this case

EACOP requires a country-by-country legal matrix because Uganda and Tanzania retain separate land, acquisition and remedy regimes, while project and lender commitments cross the border. A corridor agreement cannot silently displace national notice, valuation or grievance requirements.

The project question

The factual question is whether the project identity follows a household and asset across chainage, contractor package and construction phase. Temporary occupation and reinstatement create obligations that may survive payment and transfer between contractors.

What the scholarship still needs to establish

The major research gap is longitudinal cross-border evidence. Public debate often focuses on high-level allegations or project totals; scholars need a method for comparing local implementation, grievance access, compensation timing and livelihood outcomes without flattening national differences.

Evidence a lawyer would request

Use the legal matrix, chainage register, claimant identity, asset and valuation records, contractor commitments, payment reconciliation, reinstatement inspections and grievance referrals. Separate verified findings from allegations and from the project’s own representations.

Legal frame: East African and cross-border context

A regional project does not create one supranational land-acquisition law. Each affected jurisdiction retains its own rules on land, notice, valuation, acquisition, remedy and public administration, while the financing agreement may impose a common safeguard floor. The legally sound method is a matrix showing which national rule applies to which event and which project commitment goes further.

A regional comparison cannot resolve a claimant’s entitlement without the country, tenure, instrument and project documents. Cross-border reporting should therefore preserve local legal advice, translated disclosure and country-level grievance responsibility rather than present a regional generalisation as a rule of law.

The authorities below are starting points for verification. They are not a substitute for checking the consolidated law, regulations, cases and project agreements applicable to the specific acquisition.

• Uganda Legal Information Institute ↗
• Kenya Law ↗
• Tanzania Legal Information Institute ↗
• Rwanda Legal Information Institute ↗

The setting

The East African Crude Oil Pipeline crosses Uganda and Tanzania through a long, varied corridor. The case is valuable because pipeline impacts combine permanent restrictions, temporary construction occupation, agricultural loss and expectations about national development.

The RAP problem

The route makes consistency and communication difficult. A household may experience several impacts at different dates, while contractors, land teams and local authorities each hold part of the evidence. A one-time payment cannot close a reinstatement or livelihood commitment.

What the record should preserve

The record should connect chainage, parcel, claimant, asset, agreement, payment, contractor action, grievance and inspection. Cross-border reporting should preserve local detail instead of reducing different obligations to one regional total.

Reading the case through the standards

The legal and safeguards question is not whether a project can produce a compensation schedule. It is whether the schedule can be connected to a lawful acquisition process, a fair valuation method, an eligibility decision and an outcome that the affected person can actually experience. In Uganda, Article 26 of the Constitution places prompt, fair and adequate compensation before compulsory taking; the Land Act adds the tenure and disturbance-allowance context. Across the lender standards, the inquiry is wider still: people without formal title, economic displacement, replacement cost, livelihood restoration, consultation and grievance access all need a place in the project record.

That does not mean that every project is governed by Ugandan law or that a lender standard replaces national procedure. It means the case has to be read at the intersection of the applicable regimes. A title search may be legally necessary and still be an incomplete census. A signed agreement may prove that a document was executed and still be weak evidence that the amount was understood or that a livelihood was restored. A grievance may be closed administratively and still reveal a repeated design failure. Credibility comes from showing which proposition each document proves and which proposition requires a different kind of evidence.

What a serious case analysis would test

The first test is the impact boundary. Compare the engineering footprint with the social footprint: parcels, structures, crops and trees, but also access, customers, employees, common resources, seasonal users and people who depend on an affected household. The second is the decision chain. For each person or asset, can a reviewer move from identification to measurement, valuation, entitlement, approval, payment and remedy without relying on an unexplained spreadsheet change? The third is time. Notice, payment, possession, relocation, reinstatement and livelihood recovery are different events, and a project that reports only the earliest completed event will overstate its performance.

The fourth test is distribution. Aggregate completion figures can hide delayed claimants, women whose interests were recorded under another household member, tenants without title, vulnerable people who could not use the complaint channel, or communities waiting for a shared commitment. A credible monitoring sample should therefore be designed to find the difficult cases, not only to confirm the median case. It should preserve the reason an exception was made, who approved it, what the affected person received and what evidence supports closure. This is also where corruption risk becomes an evidence question rather than a rhetorical accusation: unexplained overrides, duplicate claims, missing measurements, payment mismatches and suppressed complaints are control signals that require investigation, not automatic conclusions of misconduct.

Research gap and practical implication

Public project material usually tells us what an instrument promised and, sometimes, what was paid. It rarely follows the same household from the baseline through implementation and into a measured outcome. That is the significant research gap running through East African RAP practice. A stronger study would combine the public legal and project record with anonymised household interviews, geospatial change, grievance trends and livelihood indicators. It would distinguish documented fact, reported allegation, project assertion and independent finding. It would also state what cannot be known from the available record.

Sources and limits of the public record

The article’s cited materials establish the standards, legal context or public accountability framework; they do not necessarily establish every factual proposition about the named project. A scholar should separate a primary legal rule, a lender requirement, a project disclosure, a reported allegation and an independently verified finding. That separation is not pedantry: it is what prevents a case study from laundering an assertion into a fact. It also identifies the next research step, whether that is a court record, a disclosed RAP, a monitoring report, a household interview or a project response.

• Performance Standard 5: Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement ↗ — International Finance Corporation, 2012.
• Guidance Note 5: Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement ↗ — International Finance Corporation, 2012.
• Good Practice Handbook: Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement ↗ — International Finance Corporation, 2023.
• Environmental & Social Issues Update ↗ — Office of the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO), 2023.

For practitioners, the implication is immediate: design the register as a chain of evidence before the first payment. Give every affected person and asset a stable identifier. Keep versions of the footprint and entitlement decision. Store the source of each rate and the reason for each exception. Record consultation in a way the affected person can use, protect sensitive grievances without making them invisible, and assign every livelihood or reinstatement commitment an owner, date, indicator and closure document. A case study is useful when it changes those controls, not when it merely provides a memorable project name.

Questions that test the thesis

• Which impacts occur before, during and after construction?
• Are temporary occupation and reinstatement tracked as commitments?
• Can the same household be recognised across multiple project components?