Broad progress omits many women and children

Uganda has continued to enjoy stable government, economic growth and rapid social development but, in contrast with these successes, disparities in wealth distribution have widened, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported last week, in launching a US $4.54 million humanitarian appeal for women and children. It was estimated that almost 44 percent of the country's population (of between 21 and 22 million) were living in "absolute poverty", it said. The government in its Poverty Status Report 2001, released in March last year, estimated that the number of people living below the national poverty line had declined from 56 percent in 1992 to 35 percent in 2000, continuing a consistent downward trend in the level of poverty. [For full report, go to http://www.imf.org] In Uganda, in 1999, life expectancy at birth was 43.2 years, almost five years lower than that in the early 1970s, according to the Human Development Report 2001, published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Women and children - especially refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) - bore the weight of much of the poverty in Uganda, with particularly poor access to health services, compounded by insecurity in parts of the country, and by gender inequality, UNICEF stated in last week's appeal document. Just over half Uganda's one-year-olds are fully immunised against measles, only about 38 percent of births are attended by skilled health staff and an estimated quarter of children under five years are estimated to be underweight for their age, according to UNDP figures. Child mortality from HIV/AIDS had slowed but remained a threat to the modest gains that had been made in under-five mortality in recent years, and the current rate of 131 per 1,000 live births was still "unacceptably high", according to UNICEF. Similarly, infant mortality was high (at 83 per 1,000 live births) and the number of women's deaths from pregnancy-related causes had risen to new heights - largely as a result of inadequate access to antenatal care, it said. The majority of mothers who died in childbirth had never attended an antenatal clinic, it added. HIV/AIDS had also caused a major demographic crisis in Uganda, according to UNICEF. More than 1.9 million people had died from AIDS, and the number of children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic, now estimated at 1.7 million, was expected to rise to 3.5 million by 2010, it said. "Scarce resources for health are diverted to the treatment and care of AIDS patients", to the extent that the pandemic had exerted a negative effect on basic services such as immunisation, it added. Endemic malaria is the main cause of child mortality nationwide, responsible for nearly one-third of all deaths of children aged between two and four years in Uganda, according to UNICEF. Some 300,000 children were also estimated to be the victims of conflict - with almost all of these suffering some form of increased stress, be it from experience of death, separation, displacement, abduction, sexual abuse or other traumas, the agency stated last week. "Children as young as 12 have been found to be enrolled in the government's armed forces [Ugandan People's Defence Forces] and in local resistance groups" [opposing the rebel Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF] in western Uganda, which was "a major concern in respect to children's rights", it said. UNICEF expressed particular concern over the educational situation of children affected by conflict, the widespread destruction of school infrastructure and materials, and the breakdown of community-support mechanisms to help children in various stages of trauma. It appealed last week for: $1 million for proposed education initiatives; some $530,000 for health and nutrition; $1.56 million for HIV/AIDS programmes; $600,000 for child protection; and $846,000 for water and environmental sanitation efforts this year. Policy goals such as improving the health of the population, reducing infant and child mortality, raising levels of educational attainment and providing safe and accessible water and sanitation were important in their own right, but also played a vital role in improving the income level of the poor, the Ugandan government noted in the Poverty Status Report 2001.