Guns: How official neglect has spawned poverty in Karamoja

Tag : livestock equipments


As famine, drought and poor development indicators take their tollon the Karamoja region of Uganda, humanitarian and developmentagencies operating there, as well as local leaders warn that unlessthe government commits sufficient resources for long termsolutions, the cycle of crises will not be broken.

The region lacks infrastructure, water, veterinary healthfacilities and food security. In April, the World Food Programme warned that one million peoplein Karamoja were facing starvation because the government was notdoing enough to avert the crisis. The region has the highestpoverty rates in Uganda, at 82 per cent, compared with the nationalaverage of 31 per cent. Oxfam GB, which has been operating in the Karamoja region for over40 years, says the government's failure to invest in the region's infrastructure and sustainable pastoral interventions is at thecore of Karamoja's problems. Records show that at least five water harvesting projects, 13animal health sheds, several food banks, bee-keeping and two roadprojects are some of the key interventions that have beenundertaken with funding from the British agency.

But Oxfam country director Savio Carvalho accuses the government ofneglect while it is comfortable with the World Food Programme anddonor agencies distributing food, he says, it pays less attentionto investing in water for production, roads and animal health,which are key to the livelihoods of the Karimajong. The state should be hugely embarrassed that life in this region isstuck in the 17th century while Kampala is full of sky scrapers.Government services in this region are badly wanting, said MrCarvalho. The region needs heavy investment and development, andunless the government deals with that, Karamoja's problems willnever be solved. Now you have issues of climate change, and allthese need a government framework. Karamoja is prone to drought. Sanitation, access to safe drinkingwater and nutrition indicators are all dismal. Over the years, thegovernment has rolled out multi-million dollar programmes, butnothing on the ground indicates value for this money. The Northern Uganda Reconstruction Programme, Karamoja DevelopmentAgency, Northern Uganda Social Action Fund, and the current Peace,Recovery and Development Plan and the Karamoja IntegratedDevelopment and Disarmament Programme, have yielded nothing for theregion.

Less than three per cent of the population in Abim, Kotido andKaabong has access to sanitation facilities. District healthrecords show latrine coverage in Kotido, for instance, is only 1.2per cent as most people use the open air system. At that, less than 50 per cent of the population in the entireregion has access to safe drinking water, while acute malnutritionlevels have reached crisis levels, according to the World HealthOrganisation (WHO). The government recently released over Ush3 billion ($1.7 million)to buy food supplies for the drought-hit region. This is inaddition to over 8,000 tonnes of food rations that have beendistributed under the WFP. However, the famine has not relented; infact it is getting worse.

BECAUSE OF THIS, OXFAM IS looking to scale up its budget to fundlong-term development activities in Karamoja, which officials sayis the best intervention in this drought-prone region. The agencycurrently spends about Ush2.45 billion ($700,000) annually inKaramoja to supply the community with essential services such aswater, veterinary services, roads, health essential and, food. It is also initiating income generating projects such asbee-keeping to end over-reliance on pastoralism.

Mr Carvalho also said that even if the government did not have theresources to extend services into the largely semi-arid zone ofKaramoja, it ought to attract more development agencies to help theregion, rather than lay the burden on a few players. We will scale up our funding but we are just one player. Thereshould be more bilateral arrangements to involve more players andenable services to reach more deserving people. The government hasto be the driver of this. As a government, you cannot just sit andwait for other agencies to develop a part of the country becauseall we do as Oxfam is complement the work of the state.

The region needs long-term investment, not just bags of food, hesaid. Local leaders agree with Oxfam sentiments. According to Kotidochief administration officer Andrew Leru, who is also the districtchair for disaster management, 60 bags of rice for 150,000 peopleis not the answer to a chronically food insecure population.

What can 60 bags do for 150,000 people? How long can it last? Idon't know what miracles we can perform because the WFP has beenhere for more than 50 years, but we keep demanding for morehandouts. We need more long-term solutions, said Mr Leru.

The 60 bags of rice came from the Office of the Prime Minister,which is the government's relief co-ordinating office. As an attempt to end the population's reliance on WFP rations,Oxfam has since 2003 built several grain banks, with millingmachines, manned by communities across the region. The communitiesbuy grain and other food items from the neighbouring districts andstock-pile until needed. The State Minister in charge of Karamoja, Aston Kajara whomleaders have called upon to resign also conceded that thegovernment is yet to focus on long-term investment in the area. Therecently launched Karamoja Integrated Development and DisarmamentPlan (KIDDP) to initiate development, food security and sustainableagriculture interventions has a deficit of Ush267 billion ($152million).

The programme, with a budget of Ush450 billion ($257 million), hasseveral components but is currently funded to the tune of Ush183billion ($104 million) for only peace building and reconciliation.It is silent on development. The pastoralist and nomadic Karimajong have lived in droughtconditions for years, and coped. Development agencies and localleaders say the government should learn the community's droughtcoping mechanism rather than encouraging the lazy mind-set ofrelying on food rations. Cash for work schemes under which Karimajong earn money byworking on projects that benefit the community is one of the waysthat development agencies have devised to encourage the Karimajongto work. One of these projects is the rain water harvesting technology from the existing rocks in the region. A two-metre embankment iserected around the edges of the rock to trap rain water, which isthen directed into an underground reservoir. The water is pumpedout to flow into the taps using ordinary borehole equipment. AtNasapir in Kotido is one such project that Oxfam is set tocommission soon. It will provide a million litres of water fordomestic use, while a few metres away is a large valley dam thatwill be used to water the animals.

At least three rock catchment stations, as they are called, arealmost complete, each with a water reservoir capacity of onemillion litres all three contracted by Oxfam, but in essencebuilt by the community. Under the cash for work scheme men and women offer manual work inexchange for Ush2,500 ($1.42) per square foot of digging, accordingto Paul Logole, a contractor at one of the projects near Kamion inKaabong district.

KARAMOJA IS ENDOWED with seasonal lakes and rivers. During therainy season, the rivers flood and crest within a short time, butbarely 48 hours later, all the water seeps into the ground and theydry up. Joseph Logwang, a resident of Nasapir, says that when itrains, he has easy access to water from one such seasonal river,the nearby Dopeth River, four and a half kilometres from his home.

And when it dries up a couple of days later, Logwang digs a shallowor deep well on the river bed depending on the water level forhis supply of water. Effectively, easy access to water here is onlyafter it has rained. The other option is to create ponds butwater from such sources is nowhere close to the recommended healthstandards. The scenario for people who live particularly in the Kaabongdistrict is more puzzling. The district boasts one of the oldestnational parks in the country, with a wide range of animalvarieties, but district authorities say they are not aware of anyof the tourism dollars being reinvested in the community.

For a pastoralist community, Karamoja is short on veterinaryservices. With a livestock population estimated to be close to about amillion cattle and a smaller number of goats mostly brought inthrough they government's restocking programme the region has onlythree qualified vets employed by the government. Livestock numbersare reducing at faster rates than the region can contain given itslimitation on veterinary services. Goat plague, scientifically referred to as PPR broke out last year,coinciding with the restocking exercise under NUSAF, in which goatspecies were brought in from South Africa. As a result, 40 per centof the goats have been lost either to the deadly PPR or raiding.

Dr John Baptist Lokwi, a vet, in charge of livestock section underOxfam, says that the Kotido district alone has lost close to 8,000goats in just two year. Livestock vaccination is ideally supposedto happen twice annually, or at worst once every year, but theanimals in this region go from years to decades withoutvaccination. Officials say government has been full of promises but littledelivery, the result of which is the current high death rate ofgoats that has prompted quarantine. This notwithstanding, the goats are sold into the neighbouringregions of Teso, Lango, Acholi and Bugisu every market day, as thedesperate Karimajong will not sit back and wait for the governmentto deliver the medicines that never seem to arrive.