"Oil and Water? The impact of oil on livelihoods in Uganda", Sep 2015

...[While] the discovery of oil has the potential to increase national revenue and enhance development, some fear that it also has the potential to create new conflicts and to exacerbate existing ones – locally, nationally and regionally...

Successful oil exploitation, enhanced through fiscal responsibility, could elevate Uganda to a middle-income country, pulling millions of people out of poverty...[But] experience in other mineral-rich countries, particularly in Africa, points to the importance of ‘getting it right’. As the country’s oil prospects gather pace, there is a worry that oil is being viewed as a quick economic solution to what are complex development problems... The sudden influx of oil cash could...undermine other sectors such as agriculture, which currently employ and feed far greater numbers than oil ever will.

The discovery of oil and people’s expectations of gaining from it have already resulted in an influx of thousands of people into the oil regions....[which could] put a strain on already limited social services, such as education, water and healthcare.

[refers to Heritage Oil, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), Total]