Combining a critical engagement of the World Bank development discourse with examples of how it is
conducted and operated in Uganda, the central objective of this thesis is to stimulate new thanking and
social action that pays due regard for local spaces and localities (localisms) of disparities, inequalities,
and concentration rather than distribution created by power and imbalance. Taking development as a local
geographic product of autonomy that neither involves creditors telling recipients how their development
should proceed, nor requires their approval and endorsement, the thesis critically explores key themes in
African experiences of development highlighting the contested and exclusionary nature of the World
Bank development discourse and the manner in which it has become manifest in the myriad efforts to
bring development to the majority poor in Uganda. Specifically, the conceptual and empirical
contribution focussed on questions of the World Bank power in the neoliberal reform policies and
Bujagali Hydropower Project in Uganda. First, in order to document the perceptions or opinions of those
for whom development is (purportedly) undertaken, responses to document reviews and field interviews
with community elders, residents, tour operators, fishermen, World Bank field staff, American Energy
Suppliers (AES) Bujagali Project staff, and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are part of the
thesis data base. Second, the Bujagali Hydropower Project as a case study demonstrates that social
movements can become a site of empowerment through successful community mobilization (inclusion)
and informed engagement with political structures. Third, findings in these areas suggest that (1) World
Bank reforms are driven by World Bank power, economic and financial concerns, and donor
conditionalities; (2) closed political processes and politically powerful groups constrain attention to
sustainable development objectives; (3) donor agencies have initiated reforms and advocated attention to
environmental concerns, but have been hampered by past reputation and a perception of favouring private
interests: a, (4) public benefits need to be factored into reform design early and backed by political
commitment. The message of the thesis is that the mainstream discussions of development in Africa
remain saturated with Eurocentric assumptions. To the extent that the World Bank reform policies
conceal part of a long history of economic exploitation, political extraversión and cultural suppression,
gross inequalities of wealth and power that, in turn, serve to legitimate neo-hberal programmes, they lack
in the realms of state capacity, empowerment and participation, and democracy. In conclusion, the
concerns with localism and localization are issues which shift the development discussion forward to
focus on the contested discourses of community, the exclusionary politics of locality and the
transformatory potential of social movements that break from technocratic practices. The thesis calls for
an engaged policy maker who seeks to find solutions to issues of inequality, inequity, disparity and social
justice rather than simply record and describe them.