Dear Hon Henry Okello Oryem,
We are aware that whereas you may have been misquoted or reported out of context, we, the Civil Society Organizations working to promote sustainable access to safe, healthy, and nutritious diets for all here in Uganda are deeply concerned by your submission and reference to hungry people in Uganda as “idiots” during a media interview.
We feel sure that you would agree that the issue of hunger is not an act of laziness or personal neglect as you were quoted to have implied in your interview, but rather, a critical national and global development challenge, an issue of social, security and political stability, and an issue of health and human development.
On a global scale, over 735 million people suffer from hunger and 900 million are severely food insecure. In Africa, over 281 Million people suffer from hunger accounting for over a quarter of the World’s hungry population. In Uganda, the challenge of hunger remains critical, with 34 million Ugandans being food insecure, of which 11.4 million people are severely food insecure. In addition, Uganda has experienced numerous food crises in the past including the death of 2,207 people in Karamoja due to starvation in 2022.
Uganda also faces high levels of invisible hunger, with 24.4% of children under five years who do not grow to their full potential due to stunting, while 32% of women of reproductive age and 53% of children under 5 years are severely anaemic. Further, Uganda also faces very wide regional disparities in the levels of malnutrition and food insecurity, with Northern Uganda registering the highest levels of underweight and severely anaemic children below 5 years at 10% and 73% respectively;
Southwestern Uganda registered the highest levels of stunting above 48% and the Karamoja subregion where 89,000 children below 5 years as well as 10,000 pregnant or lactating women (PLW) in the region were predicted to suffer from acute malnutrition between February 2023 and January 2024.
Hunger also manifests itself in various forms ranging from undernourishment to overweight and obesity. Overweight and obesity have become critical challenges of health importance, affecting 38% of the global population and over 33 Million children worldwide as well as 18% of women in Africa. In Uganda, overweight and obesity levels are exponentially increasing, affecting 3.4% of all children below 5 years and 8.4% of all women of reproductive age in the country.
As a result, Uganda is party to numerous global and regional commitments to end hunger in all its forms. Such commitments include the Sustainable Development Goals through which all UN Member states committed to end hunger by 2030. In addition; the CAADP Malabo Commitments through which all African Union member states committed to ending hunger under commitment objective 3; And recently, Uganda is part of the global consensus that achieving the SDGs is only possible through food systems transformation. In that regard, Uganda developed pathways and consequently reported on its performance during the UN Food Systems Stock taking+2 event which took place in Rome in July 2023. Institutionally, Uganda is a member of the World Committee of Food Security (CFS) with the Resident Ambassador at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN in Rome. In addition, Uganda ratified the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, a global instrument that upholds Food as a human right, implying that hunger is a state of human rights violation. In this regard, the state and all its institutions have the duty and obligation to respect, protect, and fulfil this particular right.
We commend the Government of Uganda that has on several occasions been seen to fulfil this obligation. For instance, during the COVID pandemic, the Government offered food to those who could not feed themselves and has severally distributed food to the people in Karamoja Sub-region during food crises.
Hunger is driven by numerous systemic factors that curtail individual capacities to feed themselves throughout the year. Indeed, there is enough food to feed everyone in Uganda. However, due to the absence of an effective market system, dramatic food abundance is experienced in one region, while at the same time, there is severe food scarcity in another region of the country.
In addition, it is critical to note that food production does not always translate into consumption. This is because the 70% of Ugandans who engage in Agriculture in Uganda not only depend on it for food but also all other basic needs including health care education, and housing. As such, food is mostly produced for sale and not consumption as assumed. Moreover, not all people eat what they have exclusively produced. A significant number of Ugandans especially in urban areas entirely depend on markets. This implies that they have a disposable income earned to access food. Currently, unemployment stands at 51%, implying that one in every five Ugandans is vulnerable to hunger.
It is also critical to recognize that while there is seemingly abundant land in Uganda, land evictions and tenure insecurities, as well as erosion of arable lands for other uses such as real estate and urbanization have destabilized production and certainty among smallholder farmers who produce over 80% of the food in this country.
Further, contrary to the widely-known narrative that Uganda is largely blessed with fertile soils, soil degradation is becoming a very big challenge in Uganda, with over 10% of our soils severely degraded. On the other hand, the cost of fertilizer, quality seed, and other agricultural inputs remains high, which impedes farmer access, leaving them vulnerable to the high levels of fake seeds and inputs on the market.
The lack of recognition of the extensive magnitude to which climate change is impacting agricultural production and productivity in Uganda is worrying. In the face of climate change, Uganda now registers vastly changing weather patterns that have affected seasonal patterns and rainfall distribution leading to extreme weather conditions such as floods in Kasese, landslides in Eastern Uganda, and the ever-worsening droughts in the North-East part of the country, for which the 8.2 million Ugandans who depend on rain-fed subsistence agriculture are highly vulnerable. According to the Climate Change Knowledge Portal, Uganda has encountered 20 floods, 40 epidemics, 9 droughts, and 5 landslides from 1900 to 2018, causing cumulative damages of over 200,000 deaths and at least $80 million in economic loss. For instance, Karamoja registered 700 animal deaths in 2019 due to drought. Moreover, the manifestation of new crop and animal pests and diseases, weeds, among others are new emergencies that require critical attention in the wake of climate change.
Amidst these challenges, Uganda also experiences other critical systemic challenges that exacerbate hunger and malnutrition in the population including limited access to water for production in drought-prone regions; poor extension service systems; poor post-harvest, storage, and agro-processing infrastructure; low enforcement of quality standards; absence of National Strategic Food Reserves; high inflation levels and high food prices; as well as low public budget allocations to food security and nutrition interventions.
It is important to recognize that hunger is a critical governance issue that depicts deep-rooted inequality and sits at the centre of peace and stability, the latter being evidenced in historical revolutions such as the French Revolution. As such, food security is an indicator of strengthened democracy, where the interests of the people prevail. Hence, while it is important to encourage people to strive to feed themselves as their responsibility, the government through its institutions, systems, and leaders must create an enabling environment that makes food available, accessible, in stable supply, with adequate quantity and nutrition required for all the people to live a healthy life.
As the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we would respectfully request you and the Ministry to ensure that the Government of Uganda complies with all these global and regional commitments to end hunger. In addition, we encourage you to rally global partners and stakeholders to support public and private efforts to end hunger and malnutrition.
Endorsed by;
Food Rights Alliance
World Vision
Africa 2000 Network Uganda.
UCOBAC
Uganda Coalition for Sustainable Development – Rio and Beyond
Babuka Development Ministries Uganda
Bio Vision Africa BiVA
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