Ugandan media has reported the results of a recent survey which found that 99% of primary school children in Gulu district (northern Uganda) cannot read or count.

School officials have blamed the low scores on overcrowded classrooms, “poor attitudes” of teachers, and absenteeism.

Patience Aber detailed the results of the survey:

The survey showed that at P.3 level, only 1% of the children were able to comprehend a P.2 story text, while 20% were not able to identify letters and 70% could only identity letters and words.

At P.7 level, 88% were able to comprehend a P.2 story text, while 4% of the pupils could only read single words.

Source: New Vision/ModernGhana

An empty granary which should be filled with food. (Photo by Richard M Kavuma, Guardian)

Norbert Mao (Letter from Gulu)

WHEN the guns fell silent in northern Uganda, we told our people to leave the IDP camps. After being concentrated in these squalid conditions for over a decade, going home was the best peace dividend. We told them to open their land and cultivate for their own consumption and for the market. Everyone was excited. No more lining up to face the indignity of receiving rations of food from relief organisations.

Heads of households looked forward to reasserting their authority as bread earners by the sweat of their brows. For those inclined to farm for the market, South Sudan beckoned. Our people made the leap of faith and returned to their abandoned homesteads. The lack of shelter did not deter them.

Even though roads, water, schools and health facilities were inadequate, they still moved hoping for the best. With rudimentary tools, they tackled the land that had now become bushy due to disuse. Many of the households that returned home put their faith in farming. But alas, they did not expect the drought that has hit the region. The prolonged dry spell has led to crop failure and poor harvest.

Last week, we received a report of a rapid Food Security Assessment for Acholi and Teso sub-regions from the Food Security and Agriculture Livelihoods cluster. The assessment found that in Gulu, the expected and harvested crop is less than 40 per cent of the normal season’s harvest except for rice, pigeon peas, maize and simsim.

The situation is roughly the same in most of Acholiland. Besides the dry spell, the assessment concluded that the food shortages are due to low food stocks in storage, high market prices, food aid dependency, and low acreage of cultivated land. Other factors include poor crop husbandry (untimely ploughing and weeding), obnoxious weeds, hailstorms, harvesting of immature crops and bush- fires. In normal situations, a season’s crop failure should not lead to an emergency. If crops fail, farmers should turn to what they have in storage. If the stores are exhausted, they turn to their cash savings. If the savings are wiped out they turn to the local government. If the local government fails them they run to the central government. An international appeal for help is supposed to be the last resort.

The fact that one year’s crop failure forces us to appeal for international help means that we live from hand to mouth and our food security situation is still extremely fragile. The current food shortages are thus a wake-up call to the government at the local and national level. It is also a wake-up call to the affected communities. The current state of hunger has created a shock among returning communities. This is more so because the response to the crisis has been very slow. So what is to be done? The measures that the Food Security Cluster recommends range from short-term, intermediate and long- term measures. To deal with the emergency cases, there should be immediate provision of food aid. This should go hand in hand with supply of seeds and cuttings for early maturing crops like sorghum, cowpeas, rice, potatoes and cassava.

There should also be supply of farm tools, especially ox-drawn ploughs and oxen. In order to enable the population access food through the market, there should be conditional money transfers, for instance money and vouchers for work. There should also be an all-round campaign to encourage communities to grow the so-called famine crops like cassava and sweet potatoes.

These measures should be carried out between now and December when the situation is expected to stabilise. From early next year, communities should be encouraged to establish food banks. These can be included in the Food Security Ordinance that we are currently discussing.

The Food Security Ordinance will require each household to have food stores, to cultivate a certain acreage considered optimum and to practise good crop and animal husbandry. Also included will be a commitment to promote water-harvesting and simple irrigation technologies, the diversification of enterprises, promotion of mixed farming, the regulation of the sale of food, the provision of training and extension services, and the promotion of savings and village credit services.

These measures have to be planned and carried out in an intentional manner for the simple reason that the food shortage has had serious effects. The social impact of the famine in northern Uganda cannot be underestimated. Several deaths have been reported. In Gulu two deaths have been reported in the sub-counties of Lakwana and Palaro due to consumption of poisonous cassava. Theft of food from gardens has become commonplace.

Extremely vulnerable individuals who receive food have reported housebreakings by thieves looking for food to steal. Cases of food-related family conflicts and domestic violence have increased. The inability of family heads to provide food is severely undermining family ties. In some areas, there are reports of increase in prostitution by women seeking a means of survival. Young girls have reported that in some cases family members seeking bride price are forcing them into early marriages. In Teso, cases of asset-stripping have been reported. Livestock is being sold at give-away prices so as to get money to purchase food.

In Gulu, the Education Department has reported a drop in school attendance due to hunger among children of school-going age. Cases of malnutrition have also increased, especially among children. At the Nutrition Unit of Lacor Hospital, Dr. Cyprian Opira, the executive director of the hospital, says the number of children being treated for acute malnutrition has more than doubled. At the beginning of the month there were 30 cases. Now the cases are 90.

This is not the first time famine has hit parts of the country. We can either waste time in finger- pointing or put our heads together to seek durable solutions. The situation is very bad and calls for leadership. We can leave the blame game for later when we have the leisure. Instead of cursing the darkness that has befallen our people we should each light a candle.

The writer is Gulu LC 5 chairman

Source: New Vision, Letter from Gulu, Norbert Mao

Worldwide, every year:

• 1.1 million children under five die due to vitamin A and zinc deficiencies
• 136,000 women and children die from iron-deficiency anaemia
• 18 million babies are born mentally impaired because of maternal iodine deficiency
• 150,000 babies are born with severe birth effects due to inadequate maternal B-vitamin intake
• 350,000 children become blind due to vitamin A deficiency
• 1.6 billion people suffer reduced productive capacity as result of anaemia

Keep those vitamins coming

JOHANNESBURG, 12 May 2009 (IRIN) – During the three-year Asian financial crisis in the 1990s, the number of children suffering from anaemia in Indonesia increased significantly as the poor could not afford quality food.

The condition is caused by body tissues and organs suffering a lack of oxygen when there are insufficient micronutrients such as iron in the diet. The percentage of children experiencing anaemia rose from 52 percent in 1996 to 68 percent in 1998, said a new report, Investing in the Future, citing a study.

The research found that among poor households, low consumption of eggs and dark leafy vegetables – both important sources of micronutrients like iron – resulted in an increased prevalence of anaemia in both mothers and children. “The effects were particularly severe for children conceived during and immediately prior to the crisis.”

The global economy is now in recession and children in developing countries are most at risk, warned the joint authors of the report, a group of nutrition advocacy NGOs: Micronutrient Initiative, Flour Fortification Initiative and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, and aid agencies USAID, the Canadian International Development Agency, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Bank and the World Health Organisation.

A World Bank study on the impact of the current financial crisis has estimated that in 2008 alone, higher food prices may have been responsible for an additional 44 million children suffering permanent physical and cognitive setbacks due to malnutrition.

The authors of Investing in the Future, which was released at the 2009 Micronutrient Forum in Beijing on 12 May, urged countries to increase their investments, renew commitments and expand existing vitamin and mineral supplementation programmes.

Micronutrient deficiencies lead to more frequent infections, reduce children’s ability to fight and survive disease, and impair mental capacity. In adults, vitamin and mineral deficiencies can affect general productivity and cause debilitating illnesses and even death. Deficiencies during pregnancy threaten the health and lives of women, and negatively affect their unborn children.

Inexpensive supplements and fortificants are available: the cost of salt iodization is a mere five cents per person per year, while vitamin A capsules cost two US cents each.

(IRIN News)

The council was created to protect the interests of women and girls and work to level the playing field.

In a short address before signing the order, President Obama spoke of the work his own mother, grandmother and thousands of other women had persevered through in order to provide for their families and determine their own destinies.

…it’s up to us to carry that work forward, to ensure that our daughters and granddaughters have no limits on their dreams, no obstacles to their achievements — and that they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers never dreamed of. That’s the purpose of this Council. Those are the priorities of my presidency. And I look forward to working with all of you to fulfill them in the months and years to come.

Decades of war have drastically changed the social landscape of many people from Northern Uganda.

This report commissioned by UNICEF outlines some of the conditions young girls currently face, as they cope with the aftermath of war.

By David McKenzie

The government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have resumed talks in Juba, Southern Sudan, to end the 20-year insurgency that has left over 1 million displaced. Here is the first of a two-part special report about the impact of the conflict on Ugandan girls’ right to education.

PABBO CAMP, Acholi Region, Uganda, 19 December 2006 – Christine Lawil remembers vividly the day that the LRA came to her village near Pawel, Uganda. “My husband was working in our garden and the rebels attacked the village,” she says. “They beat him and then killed him.”

The lives of Christine and her three daughters were in tatters. They travelled the 30 km to Pabbo, a desolate and sprawling camp for internal refugees. They have stayed here for the last five years.

1.6 million displaced

The decades-long conflict in northern Uganda is considered one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world. Humanitarian agencies talk of silent emergencies. This human catastrophe has registered barely a whisper.

But the numbers alone speak volumes. There are 1.6 million displaced people living in over 200 camps across northern Uganda. Children and women comprise 80 per cent of the displaced.

All the hallmarks of a stable society have disappeared here. Sanitation is abysmal, and health facilities minimal. The areas surrounding Pabbo are empty and farms lie fallow, so food needs to be brought in by aid agencies.

Learning despite the odds

But perhaps the biggest impact is on the girls.

Ms. Lawil’s oldest daughter, Katherine, lives in fear of Pabbo Camp. “There are many problems in the camp,” says the 15-year-old. “There are problems of the boys harassing girls and raping them.”

In her crisp pink-and-blue uniform, Katherine walks past the idle men in the alleyways of Pabbo that double as streams of sewage. Anecdotal testimonies suggest that rape is endemic here.

© UNICEF/2006/Sekandi

Uganda’s Acholi Region has suffered two decades of war. Thousands displaced by conflict live under harsh conditions at Pabbo Camp.

But despite the odds, the girls are learning. At Olinga School 6, several displaced schools were collapsed into one host facility. The classrooms are overcrowded, but the chatter is cheerful.

“I like mathematics,” says Katherine, “I want to stay in school so that I can know how to manage my future.”

Why girls drop out

The collapse of the social structure has put pressure on families. Girls become wives as young as age 12, leaving school in the process. They also often drop out when they reach puberty. Many schools here don’t have separate sanitation facilities for girls and they are embarrassed to continue.

At Olinga, however, the classroom noise is punctuated by the small construction site where a team is building latrines for the girls.

Ms. Lawil will probably not be able to afford to send Katherine to secondary school, as the costs are prohibitive. UNICEF and other groups are now pushing for the costs to be brought down to help ensure that all children, and especially girls, finish their schooling.

Since a historic truce was signed between the LRA and the Ugandan Government in August, there are signs of improvement in the Acholi Region. There have been virtually no reports of abductions, and a trickle of people are starting to return home.

Ms. Lawil and her family are desperate to leave and if the brittle peace holds, perhaps they can. “There is no good life in the camp, especially for the children,” she says. “I pray to go back home.”

Peace and development

The second Millennium Development Goal target is to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education.

Unlike other goals, the second development goal was supposed to be met by 2005, not 2015. In Pabbo Camp and other parts of Uganda, this goal hasn’t been met. Worldwide, recent statistics show that for every 100 boys out of school, there are still 117 girls in the same situation.

Like UNICEF globally, UNICEF Uganda is committed to promoting gender equity in education. The country promotes early childhood development sites and provides school books and education material throughout northern Uganda. Numerous efforts are under way to keep the children of Uganda protected.

But long-lasting peace would have the biggest impact of all.

Source: UNICEF