Abstract
For the past two decades the degree of inequality in Uganda has been variable, mostly on the increase. By 2009, the country’s richest 10 percent earned 2.3 times more than the poorest 40 percent. While some progress may have been made in reducing income poverty during this same period, existing figures mask a lot of poverty dynamics and characteristics. With a very low poverty line an erroneous picture is given on the extent of deprivation. Second, the distribution of consumption in Uganda is very flat, implying that many households that are presumed to have ‘escaped’ poverty have a very high level of vulnerability.
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Notes
A Gini coefficient of zero implies that all households have the same level of consumption. A coefficient of one results from a situation where all except one member of the population have no consumption expenditure. Meanwhile, the GE index is a family of income inequality measures which incorporates a sensitivity parameter (α) that varies in the weight given to inequalities in differing parts of the income spectrum.
Relative mean of expenditure refers to mean expenditure by social grouping relative to the Uganda average.
This high level of inequality in central Uganda may be explained by the fact it is the most urbanized region in Uganda.
In some ways the religious factor is closely inter-twined with ethnicity due to the history of spatial geographical location.
Captain Frederick Lugard was a representative for the Imperial British East Africa Company. He arrived in Buganda in 1890, eventually controlling over 250,000 sq. miles along the coast of East Africa with the sole objective of advancing Britain’s colonial interests. Lugard also helped free thousands of slaves from Arabs in Zanzibar.
Evangelical NGOs in Uganda are now bigger and better funded than most secular aid organizations. They account for more than one-fifth of all NGOs in the country. As of 2002, evangelical groups' humanitarian operations in the country were already worth more than $2bn annually – a number which has doubtless grown – and they compete aggressively with secular NGOs to secure US government grants.
James Kassaga Arinaitwe is a 2014 New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute and is the school partnerships manager at Educate – Uganda. For a more detailed discussion see http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/us-evangelicals-uganda-2014724135920268137.html.
The Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF) was implemented between 2003 and 2009 as a community driven Project aimed at creating a harmonized platform within which communities become active players in decentralized service delivery. It strengthened transparency while at the same time promoting community reconciliation in the region. In spite of the contributions of NUSAF and other development programs, the region still faces widespread poverty, vulnerability and inequality.
In 2007, Uganda government also started the first free universal secondary education (USE) policy in Sub-Saharan Africa. The USE policy has increased student enrolment in public secondary schools with girls benefitting more from the intervention. Girls from poor households have been noted to have benefited significantly from USE policy, suggesting a more positive impact of the policy on this category of the population.
It is notable however that the quantitative success of the government’s UPE initiative put significant stress on the country’s educational infrastructure with a consequent toll on the quality of primary schooling.
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Additional information
This case-study was prepared in the immediate follow-up of the Africa-wide Conference on ‘Inequalities in the context of Structural Transformation’, which was held in Accra, Ghana, on 28–30 April 2014. The paper was commissioned by the Organizing Committee of the Conference. For more information, please visit http://africainequalities.org/conference/
Explores inequalities in the context of structural transformation in Uganda (country case study prepared in the follow-up of the Accra Conference on African Inequalities
The official poverty line is comparable to ‘extreme’ or ‘food’ poverty as defined in most other countries, that is, it is set at the level required to just meet daily caloric requirements and no more, meaning that in reality households at or below the poverty line must sacrifice the minimum level of food intake in order to purchase other items necessary for survival.
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Lwanga-Ntale, C. Inequality in Uganda: Issues for discussion and further research. Development 57, 601–617 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2015.44
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2015.44