The impact of war disaster on urban activities:The impact of war disaster on urban activities:

Abstract

Twice in history, the world has experienced two large-scale wars which caused great destruction of urban settlements among other things. Recently, East Africa witnessed such a war between Uganda and Tanzania. Although it was on a much smaller and localized scale, it had devastating impact on some ". urban settlements in Uganda, especially Mbarara and Masaka. The Uganda" Government, like those of the countries devastated in the last World Wars, saw reconstruction of destroyed towns as a matter of priority and urgency in the immediate post-war period. Consequently it called upon all interested parties to assist in this task. Realizing that this was an issue of national~importance and challenge, the author decided to.join the task by taking onto ~fuarara town as a study area. In addressing itself to this area, the objectives of the study are: to identify and analyse war impact on the town; synthesise its post-war growth and development factors; identify and recommend strategies and make proposals for reeonstructing its central area; and to prepare a reconstruction plan and make recommendations for implementing it. (viii) The methods employed to collect data required for the study were: field survey, observation, interviews, questinaires, inventory surveys and review of related literature available. The analysis found out that war impact on Mbarara town was comparatively more extensive in the central area where socio-economic activities were greatly disrupted. ,' The study holds the view that reconstruction of the town centre should take the alternative forms of preservation, restoration, replacement (redevelopment), and commemorative, future betterment and developm~nt strategies. A number of variables, example availability of construction materials, financial and manpower resources are envisaged as possible constraints in the realization of the plan and proposals made. In this regard, the study concludes by making several policy reco~endations.