Ugandan activists don’t let investments in new oil infrastructure go unnoticed!

Displacement and ecological destruction

The whole world is witnessing the destruction the fossil fuel industry is inflicting upon communities and the climate, and everywhere, people are trying out how to do things differently. But corporate colonialism does not care for the impact they have on a local and global level. Since 2017, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), a new 1443-kilometer-long infrastructure project is under construction in East Africa’s Uganda and Tanzania. Its completion will dispossess and displace over 100,000 people from their lands and will ruin biodiversity and wildlife areas. Once it will be finished and put into service, it is expected to heavily pollute fresh water sources and coastal waters.

The project is owned largely by the French TotalEnergies, with Uganda’s National Oil Company, Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation have stakes in the remaining share. This shows once again how corporate colonialism is a contemporary affair.

In 2025, the construction is still ongoing. Stanbic Bank Uganda and KCB Bank Uganda signed a memorandum of understanding, stating their intentions to finance the completion of the pipeline.

A coalition against corporate colonialism

In August 2025, our partners from Weka Afri Sustainable Biodiversity and Food Security Foundation organised a demonstration outside the headquarters of these banks. The action united many activists from different groups under the umbrella of the Stop EACOP Coalition. Intensifying pressure on these financial institutions to abandon their plans to fund the EACOP project, they raised public awareness about its environmental and social dangers.

During the demonstration, 12 activists were arrested and remanded – confirming the governments backing of capital instead of people. The action and arrests were covered by local media, highlighting the serious environmental, human rights, and animal welfare concerns associated with the EACOP project.

Other institutions have already pulled out of the EACOP project, and Weka Afri will continue their work together with the coalition, until these banks also do so. Het Actiefonds is proud to have supported this actions and stands in solidarity with all groups fighting the fossil fuel industry and corporate colonialism!