COUNTRY SPOTLIGHT: UGANDA
In this section:
Uganda Has Cut AIDS But Struggles with Its Economy
and Conflict in the North
Children Abducted by Rebels Recover in N. Uganda
Centers
Gorillas Key to Uganda Development
Uganda Has Cut AIDS But Struggles with Its Economy and Conflict
in the North
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Map showing national parks, lakes, and major roads
in Uganda.
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KAMPALA, Uganda—Uganda has made significant
social, political, and economic progress since dictators such
as Idi Amin ruled the east African nation several decades
ago. But it still faces a long list of problems, ranging from
HIV/AIDS to economic reform, many of which are the focus of
U.S. aid programs.
The USAID mission here is one of the largest in Africa and
one of the world’s largest recipients of funds to combat
HIV-infection, prevent mother-to-child transmission of the
disease, and provide drugs and care to the ill through the
President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
The Agency also spends about $36 million a year on economic
growth, agriculture, environment, democracy, and governance.
“Uganda has at least a tiny part of almost every U.S.
interest in the region: the fight against AIDS, conflict resolution,
wars in Sudan and Congo, biodiversity, economic growth, and
democratization and human rights,” U.S. Ambassador Jimmy
Kolker said in an interview with FrontLines.
“The USAID mission here has the resources and staff
to really see results by working with Ugandans to solve their
problems.”
Aggressive strategies—such as ABC, which stands for
Abstain, Be Faithful, and Use Condoms, and has been championed
by Uganda President Yoweri Museveni—have cut Uganda’s
HIV rate from more than 30 percent in the early 1990s to about
6 percent today, one of the lowest rates in Africa.
When the president’s plan began in 2003, the USAID
mission “had a good base to build on…and was able
to very quickly scale up prevention, treatment, and care,”
Kolker said.
Other development activities are unfolding throughout the
country, with the northern sector getting mostly food aid
and health and education projects through the Office of U.S.
Foreign Disaster Assistance and the Office of Food for Peace.
A 19-year-long conflict in five northern districts has displaced
about 1.8 million people, making it a humanitarian crisis
comparable to that in neighboring southern Sudan.
“The biggest clouds hanging over Uganda’s head
are the conflict in the north and democratization and succession
issues,” Kolker said, adding that corruption is also
an issue.
Museveni has ruled Uganda, which lacks a multiparty system,
since 1986. There will be a referendum in June 2005 to decide
if he can change the constitution in order to run again in
2006.
Uganda
Capital: Kampala
Population: 24.7 million
Size: slightly smaller than Oregon
Per capita income: $1,390
Population below national poverty line: 38%
Literacy rate: 69.9 percent
Life expectancy: 48
All Uganda stories were written by FrontLines Acting Deputy
Managing Editor Kristina Stefanova, who recently visited the
country.
Sources: CIA World Fact Book and USAID/Uganda
Children Abducted by Rebels Recover in N. Uganda Centers
KITGUM, Uganda—Okwera, a quiet boy with large,
dark eyes who could be 3 years old, was born to an abducted
girl. She was made “wife” to a commander of the
Lord’s Liberation Army (LRA), which has fought the Ugandan
government in the north for 19 years.
Okwera now lives in a USAID-funded center, where rescued
children typically spend a month and a half receiving medical
care and counseling before returning to their families. But
Okwera has been here since January because initially he would
not speak, making it difficult to find members of his family.
The center is near Labuje camp, where 17,000 internally
displaced persons (IDPs) live in mud huts built two feet apart.
Food is provided through the World Food Program and USAID’s
Office of Food for Peace. Clean water is available only at
seven pumps.
There are 200 such camps housing 1.8 million people in the
north.
The LRA is headed by Joseph Kony, a mystic who wants to
rule Uganda according to a bizarre interpretation of the Bible.
The LRA, which the United States classifies as a terrorist
organization, frequently operates on both sides of the border
with Sudan.
A December ceasefire fell apart, and the LRA has resumed
attacks, cutting women’s lips off in some cases.
The LRA has abducted more than 20,000 children since 1986.
Boys are trained as fighters, and girls are made commanders’
“wives.” Both sexes are used as porters.
Christine was stolen by the LRA when she was 12, as she
walked home from school. At first she was made to carry luggage.
But a year into her captivity, a commander she describes as
“big and aged” began raping her, beating her if
she resisted. A year later, when she escaped, she was wounded
on her left leg, which still bears a wrinkled scar.
Christine, now 15, has been at the center with Okwera for
some time. Her father has died, and her mother, who has visited
her, has had another baby.
“I have no fear to go home,” Christine says, rarely
looking up and busily plucking threads from a blanket. “But
I worry about books and school uniforms. I have no shoes.
“I have not told my mother what has happened to me.”
Each month, about 100 children and 50 adults come to the
centers for abductees in this camp. Like the children, adults
are fed, washed, given medical care, counseled, and eventually
reunited with their families. When they leave, they are given
food, soap, and blankets.
The few people in Kitgum district who still live in their
villages are the most frequent abduction targets. But most
camps are also attacked, and people are abducted when they
wander away from them in search of firewood or water.
To protect themselves, some 12,000 people—mostly children—walk
from nearby villages and camps in late afternoons to spend
the night in Kitgum town, a dusty, neglected place with a
single paved road. These “night commuters” sleep
huddled close together wherever they find space—on veranda
floors, in church yards, and in the halls of St. Joseph Hospital.
When the sun rises, they head back home.
The HIV-infection rate in IDP camps is significantly higher
than the national average. Since 2002, USAID has been funding
HIV/AIDS testing, treatment, and prevention at St. Joseph,
including use of nevarapine to prevent mother-to-child transmission
of HIV/AIDS.
To further lower the chance of transmission, mothers are
urged not to breastfeed. U.S aid provides replacement feeding
for babies and young children, as well as items such as soap
and blankets for mothers.
Mothers are trained in skills such as tailoring and, using
sewing machines donated through the program, they make dresses
and shirts for sale.
Most USAID activities in Kitgum are funded through the Community
Resilience and Dialogue Program, carried out by the International
Rescue Committee.
Gorillas Key to Uganda Development
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Kisoro, a young male, is one of the habituated gorillas
living in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National
Park, which USAID supports through various projects.
Kim Burns, USAID/Uganda |
(Continued from Front Page)
U.S. assistance supports all steps of this process, including
training the guards, studying the gorillas, and helping with
law enforcement.
Only 700 mountain gorillas exist worldwide. Nearly half
are in Uganda, and the rest are in neighboring Congo and Rwanda.
Mountain gorilla tourism in Uganda generates some $16 million
annually through tourist viewing of five gorilla groups: four
in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and one in Mgahinga National
Park.
A large part of U.S. aid goes to villagers surrounding the
parks, who are taught about conservation and helped to profit
from and improve their villages through revenues earned while
managing the park.
In the small village of Nkuringo, a USAID-funded project
has helped residents organize into a legal association that
received a concession from the Ugandan Wildlife Authority
to sell the six daily gorilla permits for the newly habituated
group, which includes the young Kisoro.
The association bought land, and is looking for a private
partner to design and build a lodge.
Nearby Buhoma built a campground in the mid-1990s, but because
gorilla permits are sold through tour operators that have
their own accommodations, the site is not as profitable as
Nkuringo will be, said Helga Rainer of the African Wildlife
Foundation/International Gorilla Conservation Programme, which
carries out the project.
USAID has invested $2 million on gorilla conservation over
the past three years. The project is now continuing as part
of the five-year, $17 million Productive Resources Investment
for Managing the Environment (PRIME) Program.
PRIME focuses on the Albertine Rift Valley’s center,
an area that harbors half of Africa’s bird species and
40 percent of its mammal species. It is the only place in
the world where mountain gorillas, golden monkeys, chimps,
and savanna wildlife coexist, which is critical to Uganda’s
future as a wildlife destination for tourists.
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A hippo takes the plunge. Uganda’s national parks,
which receive funds under a USAID environmental program,
are home to thousands of endangered animals.
Kim Burns, USAID/Uganda |
In the 1960s, Uganda was the prime safari tourism destination,
topping Kenya and Tanzania. It was home to 30,000 elephants,
700 rhinos, 10,000 zebras, 26,000 hippos, 60,000 Cape buffalo,
and 25,000 hartebeest. But high human density, conflict, and
poaching have taken their toll, leaving only about 20 percent
of the animals. And rhinos are extinct.
The landscape here is equally diverse, ranging from glaciers
at the top of the fabled Rwenzori Mountains down through alpine
moorland, forest lands, and savanna grasslands. Some 800 square
kilometers of forest here have been lost in the past 15 years.
The high level of unique species and growing habitat loss
have put the region on a list of biodiversity hotspots.
Managing the central Albertine Rift parks is difficult because
it requires cooperation among three countries. Elephants from
Congo often cross the border into Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth
National Park. And the gorilla group that tourists can see
from Mgahinga has been “vacationing” in Rwanda for
the past four months.
USAID funds projects that monitor the animals across borders.
Training of guards and wardens in all three countries is also
ongoing.
As residents of communities bordering the parks are taught
about conservation, PRIME is also introducing crops such as
tea and organic coffee to these farmers, and working with
them to stop wetlands drainage.
In the town of Kasese, the project is starting to work with
a group of wood processors, who estimate that some 30 percent
of the wood they buy is illegally logged from national parks.
The association—made up of brickmakers, lime producers,
and carpenters—asked PRIME for funds to plant wood lots
and better enforce wood certification, which will eventually
lower the number of illegal logs they buy.
“We are linking development to conservation objectives,
and ecotourism is the best example of this,” said Jody
Stallings, environmental officer with USAID. “We show
communities that it is in their interest to preserve nature,
while also giving them a chance to improve their livelihoods.”
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