Is humanitarian aid in northern Uganda just a liquor subsidy? A look at women and brewing.

Here’s an alarming figure from northern Uganda, fresh from Phase II of our Survey of War Affected Youth, or SWAY. Women brew a lot of alcohol. A LOT. Brewing actually appears to be the number one economic activity among women when SWAY surveyed them (in January to March of 2007). 42 percent of women aged 14 to 35 who are not enrolled in school say they brewed at least once in the four weeks prior to the interview, and 33 percent listed it as their primary occupation.

This should be a real concern to aid agencies because a common humanitarian intervention in such emergency situations is providing women with small capital to start small business activities. Could these grants and loans simply be a massive subsidy to the local brewing industry, and a big boost to drunkenness and violence in displacement camps?

Brewing is undesirable for a number of reasons. For one, it’s arguably not the most productive use of scarce resources in a situation of near-famine, especially since much of the brewing is of spirits rather than (relatively nutritious) beer. Chronic drunkenness is also a problem in the displacement camps—half of all married women in our survey report that their husbands often or sometimes become drunk. Moreover, women who reported frequent drunkenness by their husbands were 50 percent more likely to report an incident of domestic abuse (although, interestingly, actually brewing is not associated with greater abuse).

It’s difficult to say exactly what is going on here, but my reading suggests that brewing is so dominant because it is a relatively profitable use of small amounts of capital—a conclusion that bodes ill for the aid agencies.

Moreover, brewing is something women can do while watching children and doing their many household chores. It can be performed in the hot afternoons (when farming is impractical or uncomfortable) or in dry season when few agricultural opportunities are available.

Brewing also seems to have the virtue of being relatively low risk. My interviews with brewers suggest that both the quality and quantity of the end product is predictable, with little likelihood of spoilage. Prices and demand appear to be stable, and so profits are similarly predictable. The time from investment to production and sale is also just a few days, further reducing uncertainty and providing a relatively quick return.

If that weren’t enough, brewing is also one of the few ways women see a flow of cash and profits from men—cash that is necessary for buying different foods, paying health and education fees, and even for engaging in more capital-intensive and profitable economic activities.

There is some hope. In particular, brewing may only be a relatively profitable use of small amounts of capital, and are a step on the path to larger-scale activities. There is some evidence of this. For instance, from one female survey respondent, “I brew everyday but it doesn’t bring much money. It is just to get some money to hire help in the fields.” Indeed, richer women in our sample are less likely to be engaged in brewing and more likely to have a small business or vocation.

As we saw in Phase I of SWAY, economic activities in a humanitarian emergency are fluid and depend greatly on the skills and capital people have available to apply to their (more or less) limitless time. Young men and women climb up the occupational ladder to more skill- and capital-intensive activities by accumulating more education, cash, and equipment over time. Brewing seems to be but one low- or middle rung on this ladder.