POVERTY IN UGANDA – SUMMARY OF POVERTY SITUATION IN UGANDA
Poverty in Uganda is fundamentally viewed as a lack of essential human needs. Most of the people in the Ugandan communities are confronted. African countries tend to fall at the bottom of a list of small economic activities.
In the last 30 years, absolute poverty has fallen drastically from around 40% to under 20% worldwide. That sounds promising, but in most African countries the percentage has hardly changed. To date, over 40% of communities in sub-Saharan Africa live in absolute poverty.
According to the 2016 poverty assessment, Uganda has significantly reduced monetary poverty in Uganda. However, poverty is very common in the northern and eastern parts of Uganda. This is attributed to the ‘Lord’s Resistance Army’ war, which lasted about 20 years.
Some other major causes of poverty in Uganda are widespread HIV/AIDS, drought since Uganda is heavily dependent on agriculture, high unemployment, flooding in some parts of the country, landslides, environmental changes, etc.
The proportion of Uganda’s population below the national poverty line fell from 31.1% in 2006 to 19.7% in 2013, putting the country among sub-Saharan African countries in reducing the poverty rate. Nonetheless, Uganda still lags in several important non-monetary areas such as improved sanitation, access to electricity, education, and child malnutrition.
The people of Uganda have repeatedly experienced a fundamental disadvantage in their well-being. As a result of the inability to meet their needs, the lives of future Ugandans (children) have been compromised.
The children from the poor families have not received any education, poor people do not have better medical care, some even have no shelter and some even have no food for days. Such circumstances, not favorable for human life, led to the death of several parents, leaving many orphans in Uganda.
This has resulted in many Ugandan children being abused, raped, forced into marriage, expelled from schools and infected with HIV or lost their lives, etc.
In addition, the lack of food to feed themselves at home has also forced many young children to take to the streets of Kampala to try their fate by begging from passers-by and people in passing cars. This has also increased the number of street children in Uganda.
According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die every day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages in the world, far from the surveillance and conscience of the world. Being gentle and weak in life makes these dying mobs even more invisible in death.”
Every time you see pictures on social media or TV of hungry people without food, cleaning water, often in torn clothes and bare feet in the mud, and living in thatched houses in slums, you know that this is the lowest level of absolute poverty in Uganda.
Finally, there is extreme poverty experienced by many innocent people in Uganda. Many cannot find protection for themselves. Many cannot bring their children to school, and some cannot feed themselves.
We put hope in the lives of these people. We need your help! Decide today to support a Ugandan child. Donate food, medical facilities, or clothing and make a difference in their lives.
Email us at info@tuyambe.org or call us today on +49 1520 231 2476!