Uganda’s 46m people are scattered in the country’s 17 statistical regions which according to Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) are: Kampala, Buganda, Busoga, Bukedi, Bugisu, Sebei, Teso, Karamoja, Lango, Acholi, West Nile, Madi, Bunyoro, Tooro, Rwenzori, Kigezi and Ankole).
Of the 46m people, 24m are females and the remaining 22m males. Indeed, with exception of Buganda and Kampala, in all the statistical sub regions, females outnumber males. Here is how the situation looks like: Rwenzori has 1.2m people of whom 599,274 are males against 634,193 females; Bukedi 1.1m males vs. 1.3m females; Karamoja 721,434 males vs. 774,683 females; Bugisu 863,719 males vs. 964,038 females; Sebei 183,211 males vs. 194,083 females; Madi 272,908 males vs. 280,237 females; West Nile 1.6m males vs. 1.7m females; Acholi 985,339 males vs. 1,059,016 females; Bunyoro 1.3m males vs. 1.5m females; Tooro 1,040,079 males vs. 1,114,082 females and Teso 1.2m males vs. 1.3m females.
BUGANDA’S DIFFERENT:
According to the May 2024 final census report, Buganda and Kampala are the only statistical sub regions where males outnumber females. In Kampala, the report shows that there is a total of 1,797,722 people of whom 1,004,884 are males and the remaining 792,838 are females.
UBOS boss: Chris Mukiza
In Buganda’s case, the report shows that the region has 11,171,924 people of whom 5,635,064 are males and the remaining 5,536,860 are females. Clearly, in this statistical region, the number of males exceeds that of females by 98,204.
The census report goes on to show why and how Buganda is able to be the only statistical region with more males than females. The report illustrates this by breaking down the number of people that are in each of the 26 districts, cities and other administrative units found in Buganda.
It’s only through looking at these that one can get to see and understand why and how Buganda ends up being the only region of Uganda where males outnumber females by almost 100,000.
Out of the 26 administrative units of Buganda, 11 of them have more males than females as is illustrated hereunder: Kalangala has 45,396 males and 29,015 females; Kiboga 95,629 males vs. 87,626 females; Nakasongola 114,805 males vs. 111,269 females; Rakai 194,969 males vs. 151,916 females; Ssembabule 157,207 males vs. 148,764 females; Wakiso 1,828,466 males vs. 1,582,711 females; Lyantonde 72,366 males vs. 60,651 females; Nakaseke 125,784 males and 125,614 females; Butambala 78,993 males vs. 67,523 females; Buvuma 58,410 males vs. 52,422 females and Masaka City 154,355 males and 139,811 females. In the remaining 15 districts or administrative units of Buganda, females outnumber females.
The recently released final census report 2024 corroborates the fact that Uganda’s mental health crisis is actually deeper than is always appreciated. That actually, 1 in every 10 Ugandans (or 10%) aged 10 years and above, is experiencing “psychological distress” of some sort.
Uganda’s population is roughly 46m people and of these, about 14m are children aged 9 years and below. So, this means that those aged 10 years and more, who the mental distress part of the census report refers to, number up to 32m; ten percent of which translates to 3.2m persons.
The report further shows that of that 3.2m, 8% suffer from probable depressive disorder; 4% from probable bipolar effective disorder; 4% anxiety disorders and 1% suffer from suicidal tendencies.
It’s recommended in the report that the government undertakes comprehensive scientific investigations to properly identify and diagnose the extent of “psychiatric disorders” in the country. That the GoU should leverage census data as an entry point and “sampling frame” to study the problem more deeply in order to come up with the appropriate mitigation measures.
In strict adherence to the standard reflected under the globally-accepted eight Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) questions, the UBOS enumerators prudently used the May 2024 census enumeration exercise to ask people in Uganda’s 10.7m households the appropriate food security-related questions.
Specifically, these are questions like how often household members ever worry about not being sure of getting their next meal, how often do they go a day without food, how often are they compelled to eat less because of financial constraints in the household, how often do they fail to put a meal on table and how often do they generally encounter difficulties accessing food etc.
Globally, it’s through adhering to those 8 FIES questions that governments and other stakeholders get to establish food security levels or even food insecurity-both moderately and severely through public surveying. Using the above referenced FAO-approved methodology, the UBOS enumerators were able to assess the extent to which the food security situation in Uganda complies with the ideals enshrined in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 2.
This specific SDG seeks to achieve for communities food security, improved nutrition, hunger elimination and promotion of sustainable agriculture. The same objectives are replicated under AU’s Africa-wide Agenda 2063, the EAC Vision and Uganda’s own Vision 2040.
In response to the enumerators’ questions, respondents representing each of the 10.7m households shared their food security-related experiences as encountered during the 12 months preceding the census months of May 2024.
THE FINDINGS:
And gratefully, it was established that not less than 54% of the households in Uganda are food secure, the remainder being moderately insecure and a few severely food insecure. Food insecure households implies families which experience frequent and prolonged periods of insufficient food intake largely due to lack of money and other related constraints.
Such financially vulnerable households are forced to skip meals or even taking a day or days without meals. That is categorised to be severely food insecure.
The newly released 2024 final census report shows that the statistical region of Karamoja has the highest number of households enduring food insecurity at 63% and Ankole had the lowest at 18%.
The other statistical sub regions of Uganda faired as follows: 63% of the households in Kampala are food secure; 69% in Buganda are too besides 50% in Busoga and 31% in Bukedi.
Other statistical regions ranked as follows in terms of household level food security: Bugisu 41%, Sebei 47%, Teso 28%, Karamoja 19% (meaning food insecurity is at 81% there), Lango 38%, Acholi 51%, West Nile 31%, Madi 38%, Bunyoro 63%, Tooro 67%, Rwenzori 52%, Ankole 70% and Kigezi 61%.
In a bid to reduce on the number of households still gripped in subsistence economic activities and way of survival (mainly through rudimentary agriculture, gathering & hunting), President Museveni came up with Parish Development Model (PDM) under his current term of government.
And according to Secretary to Treasury Ramathan Goobi, as of last November Shs2.06trn had been given out or disbursed to the targeted households through a total of 10,589 parishes.
The programme intervention seeks to impact 3.5m households of Uganda which the latest census confirmed to be under the subsistence way of life. President Museveni has been on a countrywide tour of the country to ascertain how well the PDM programme is performing.
He has been outspoken against lower level local government officials who have been acting corruptly while implementing the programme. He rightly fears that, if not identified and sanctioned early, such saboteurs can frustrate and fail his otherwise well-resourced and well-intentioned programme.
In the 2024 census final report, authored by some of Uganda’s most eminent statisticians led by Dr. Albert Byamugisha and Dr. Chris Mukiza, it’s illustrated how the different regions of the country have faired under the Parish Development Model.
Whereas Busoga is the worst-performing and therefore the least impacted, with only 14% of the intended households benefiting, Sebei and Kampala Sub regions are so far the best-performing with 76% and 69% of the intended households benefiting respectively.
The 2024 census report authors define subsistence households as those whose members can’t adequately afford or meet their most basic daily needs. And it’s that state of affairs that the PDM intervention seeks to mitigate.
The census final report indicates that in Ankole, only 31% of the intended households had been impacted by PDM as of last November. The other sub regions faired as follows: Rwenzori 29%, Kigezi 28.4%, Tooro 34%, Bunyoro 21%, Buganda 23%, Bukedi 18%, Bugisu 44%, Lango 18%, Karamoja 20%, Acholi 22%, Madi 23% and West Nile 18%.
As defined under the census survey report language, a household is a group of people who live and eat together. The census report shows that Uganda currently has 10.7m households of which 3.5m fall under subsistence way of life and according to the President, these require urgent rescue.
We know he is naturally a very busy person but President Museveni’s brother Gen Salim Saleh should create time and personally read chapter 12 of the newly-released 2024 census final report.
It’s a 351 pages report whose authors, led by UBOS ED Dr. Chris Mukiza and Governing Board Chairman Dr. Albert Byamugisha, dedicated chapter 12 (pages 155-162) to disseminate findings regarding the impact of several wealth creation programmes and interventions the GoU has been putting in place over the years.
Examples of these interventions include PDM, emyooga, Youth Livelihood Programme, the Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE) for older persons aged 80 & above, National Agriculture Advisory Services (NAADS), the Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Programme (UWEP) to deepen women entrepreneurs’ access to financial services, Special Enterprise Grant for Older Persons (SEGOP) for older persons aged 60-79 and Gen Salim Saleh’s Operation Wealth Creation (OWC).
Even when they are targeted at different gender and age groups, these programmes were all aimed at increasing incomes and improving the quality of life for the targeted groups or households across the country. This is one thing that all these wealth creation interventions had in common.
His busy schedule notwithstanding, Gen Saleh ought to put aside time and at least read that part on his OWC impact and performance. The census enumerators did ask people in the individual households as they went about the enumeration work in May 2024 specifically about how they had benefited from each of these interventions.
OWC Boss Gen. Salim Saleh
Assuming the respondents were being truthful, what is contained in the UBOS report shows that the multi-billion OWC, like all the others, impacted far much fewer citizens than had been targeted.
They each sought to impact Ugandans living under the subsistence bracket that comprises households whose dwellers are financially vulnerable and have no much interaction with the money economy and live hand to mouth. These are established to be not less than 3.5m households out of the total number of 10.7m households the census enumerators established Uganda to be having as at May 2024.
Being chiefly coordinated by Gen Saleh, who is aided by hundreds of army officers each one of whom is charged with a sub region, a district or a city, OWC seeks to transform millions of subsistence farmers into commercial farmers.
The stated overall objective is to end household poverty among the intended beneficiaries who had to be all financially vulnerable adults aged 18 and above.
During the census exercise, the enumerators kept asking households if they had benefited or not. And by the time the final tabulation was done, it was established that less than 1% (0.4% to be exact) of the intended beneficiaries had been impacted by or benefited from the OWC intervention.
This is something that must intrigue Gen Salim Saleh who has dedicated a lot of effort to get things done, through distribution of high quality seedlings and other farming inputs, across the country since the year 2013 when the OWC operation started.
Assuming that the people in the households who answered the questions weren’t being deceptive in their answers, this anomalous situation that only 0.4% of the intended households had so far benefited from or had been impacted by OWC would equally disturb the President himself too.
OTHERS EQUALLY STRUGGLING:
The situation was hardly any better with all the other similarly-targeted interventions like Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP) which the census report establishes to have impacted only 0.4% among the targeted households in which vulnerable youths aged 18-30 live.
PDM had impacted only 832,746 which is 24% of the targeted 3.5m households as of May 2024. It was 18% for SAGE which began in and has been on since 2011. Under SAGE, older citizens aged 80 and above were originally facilitated by the GoU with an upkeep of Shs25,000 per month through the Ministry of Gender, Labor & Social Development.
Yet that isn’t all. The now disbanded NAADS (which was enacted in the 2000s to increase commercialisation of agriculture
while accelerating and enabling agro-processing and value addition besides improving household food security and income) only managed to impact 0.9% of the intended beneficiary households as of May 2024.
Finance Shadow Minister in Parliament Semujju Nganda, who is also a renowned pundit, says that this is extremely shameful given than hundreds of billions of shillings were sunk in all these wealth creation programmes over the years.
The best performance under these interventions was registered under the little known SEGOP, which supports older persons aged 60-79 into income generation activities. Under this intervention, the census exercise established that 7% of the intended beneficiary households were impacted or had their older persons benefit.
Under the Emyoga intervention, which aimed at transitioning 69% of the targeted 3.5m households from subsistence to the money economy space through getting them into market-oriented production, the census exercise established that only 0.4% of the intended households had at least one member who had received or got the attendant cash!
One can only imagine or wish that those responding to UBOS census enumerators’ questions didn’t answer truthfully otherwise 0.4% is alarmingly low given the hundreds of billions of shillings that have been sunk into the Emyoga programme.
The final copy of the 2024 census report is out. It’s a 351 pages report whose contents have duly been authenticated by UBOS Executive Director Dr Chris Mukiza and governing Board Chairman Dr. Albert Byamugisha.
The report captures many things and economic development indicators including the proportion of the country’s 46m people population that lives and works in Kampala and other Cities. As of census night in May 2024, a total of 5,547,645 people lived or worked in Kampala and the country’s other 10 cities.
Kampala City
Of the 5.5m people relying on these 11 Cities to thrive, 2.5m directly depend on Kampala (living and working their during day time) and 176,994 thrive on the tourism City of Fort Portal, which actually has the lowest day time population among all Uganda’s Cities.
The others rank as follows: Arua 440,540; Gulu 323,888; Hoima 190,075; Jinja 363,134; Kampala 2,503,174; Lira 304,057; Masaka 328,485; Mbale 371,626; Mbarara 324,974 and Soroti 220,698.
Housing living conditions in every country are a key indicator of how well citizens, children inclusive, are living. In the case of Uganda, this is a mandatory requirement imposed on the government especially under the Children’s Act, the Constitution and also the Sustainable Development Goals no. 6 and 7.
Goal 6 is directly related to the ease with which access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities for all citizens is guaranteed. Goal 7 requires that governments ensure that the same is affordably, reliably and sustainably accessible for especially the children.
The 2024 census report shows that Teso sub region has the highest number of children whose access to safe and affordable water services has greatly improved. The report puts Teso sub region at 97% of children having access to vastly improved water sources followed by Ankole at 59%. This improvement depicts easy access to tap water, boreholes, springs and protected wells among other sources.
The same report shows the percentage of children living in homes or households whose members or inhabitants can access clean and safe water sources within less than 1km radius from their place of abode. At the national level, 48% of Uganda’s children live in homes which can access their water source within 1km radius. When it comes sub regions, Buganda leads with 54% of its children able to access safe and clean water within less than 1km from their homes.
Other sub regions rank as follows: Busoga 52%, Acholi 51%, Elgon 50%, West Nile 48%, Bukedi 48%, Ankole 46%, Bunyoro 46%, Tooro 45%, Kigezi 45%, Lango 42%, Teso 40% and Karamoja 31%.
The census report also makes reference to the proportion of Uganda’s children living in homes or households with limited or constrained capacity to afford safe, clean and decent energy sources. That in Karamoja, 59% of the children live in homes which can’t afford better than gasoline, paraffin or even candles as sources of energy for lighting their surroundings at night. Other statistical sub regions rank as follows: West Nile 26%, Acholi 26%, Bunyoro 17%, Buganda 13%, Tooro 23%, Ankole 19%, Kigezi 25%, Lango 15%, Teso 13%, Busoga 33%, Bukedi 42% and Elgon 44%.
