Progress and challenges of Meeting the MDGs in Uganda: The Role of Transport.
By
Betty Babirye- Ddungu- Social Assessment consultant with Socio-Economic Impact
Analysis Group (SEIAG). She is rural sociologist with MA, Institute of Social
Studies, Hague, BA Makerere
University Kampala. She was
previously working as Social Assessment Advisor with Ministry of Transport and
Works, before working in the same field with Ministry of Finance, planning and
Economic Department and Ministry of Water, Lands and Environment
Abstract:
The
Poverty Eradication and Action Plan (PEAP) is the main government of Uganda framework for poverty eradication, economic
transformation and improvement in living standards. PEAP is compatible to MDGs and a benchmark
against which government investment in all sectors are measured. The Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) is a framework for
implementing income poverty aspect of the PEAP (pillar) and it is within the
PMA that transport policies and strategies are designed.
- A network of roads,
bridges and footpath and IMTs improves access to
wider markets, inputs leading to cost reduction, increased productivity,
profitability and improved access to information, new ideas and social
services. Poor and inadequate transport
hinder improving livelihoods the
farmers and the rural poor while reliable and affordable transport reduces
vulnerability among pregnant women, elderly, PWD and school- going
children, who find short distances a barrier to access social services.
- This direct and strong
link between transport and poor makes transport especially feeder roads as
one of the PEAP priorities and one of the PMA components.
- The transport sector which contributes 4.9% of GDP consists of
road, rail, inland water and air infrastructure and services is envisaged
to play facilitating role towards the achievement
of PEAP and MDGs.
- The paper discusses
the direct and facilitating roles of transport towards MDGS and the PEAP
on the basis of the review of transport and poverty reduction strategies to
assess the contribution of transport to poverty reduction and the recent MDGS
report. .
Eradicating
Extreme Poverty and Hunger: Progress in the last 5 years (2002-6)
- Uganda targets to reduce absolute poverty to less than
10% by the year 2017 which entails reducing income-poverty headcount from
about 56% in the early 1990s to about 28% in 2015. Performance has been impressive: GDP growth rates grown from 5.8%, from
4.7% and per capital GDP from 2.2% and 1.2%, annual economic growth rate
5.6%, inflation less than 10%. Poverty reduced from 56% in 1992 to 31% in 2006 while the
economy evolving towards the service and manufacturing sectors
Challenges
- Increasing inequalities
(gender and regional). GDP strong
but slowing, while income poverty of 31% still high and the economic growth rate of 5.6% is below the 7% target to reduce poverty by 2017.
Population growth rate of 3.4% is higher than the economic growth
rate undermining economic growth, while slow growth in agriculture is
worsening poverty among crop-rural and farming sector from 39% to 50%.
- Food availability not
a problem but access and utilization inadequate. The prevailing levels of
childhood under- and mal-nutrition are high, accounting for 40% of all
deaths of children before the age of five. Over 38% of children less than
5 years of age are stunted, 4% wasted and 22.5% underweight. 10% of women are undernourished, while
micro-nutrient deficiencies (particularly Vitamin A) are common. In 2006,
8% of the households took one meal a day, while 10% of the households had
their children aged less than 5 years take nothing for breakfast. Food
insecurity and vulnerability worse in North and Eastern Uganda. Causes of food insecurity include inadequate
food intake, ignorance, poverty, taboos and the high prevalence of
HIV/AIDS.
Role of Transport:
- Long distance
constrains farmers to access agricultural services. Close 50% of
households that receive extension services within 5km reach while more
than 20% were located more than 10km away, with those in fish farming
being most disadvantaged
- Massive investment to
improve road, water and rail to enhance competitiveness, regional markets,
efficiency. This would address constraints to private sector growth, boost
tourism and non-traditional exports that would earn more if value added
and costs reduced.
- Focus on rural
transport to support PMA with emphasis on use of labour
based methods to increase employment, promote women participation and promote
local contractors. In the same
vain, transport envisaged to facilitate food distribution from
food surplus to food scarce areas; IDP camps, school feeding programme while security roads are vital to resettling IDPs.
- Improvement in rural
infrastructure would facilitate the dissemination of information on family planning enhancing
women mobility and accessibility to family planning services, while IMT
reduce household and agricultural work burden which force many households
to have many children.
- IMT scaled up to address
women’s time poverty by easing
their arduous and time-consuming tasks to enable them to participate in income
generating activities; in addition to reducing post-harvesting losses, back and head
loading and school absenteeism.
Achieving Universal Primary Education:
- Currently
86% of school age children are enrolled in primary schools, including girls,
those with disabilities and those from geographically and educationally
disadvantaged areas. Financing increased from 2.1% GDP in 1995 to 4.8% of
GDP in 2003/2004, share in the national budget from 19% in 1995/96 to
26.8% in 1998/99. This year the budget has increased to 30% due to the
introduction of USE
- Increase of gross
enrollment ratio of 91.3% and net enrollment ratio of 86%) as well as in number
of class rooms from 28,000 in 1997 to 75,228 to date.
Key challenges:
- Financial constraints,
lack of interest, poor health and socio-cultural factors and long distances
contribute to drop out, repetition rates, imbalances in gross enrolment
ratios between girls and boys and rural and urban areas in terms.
- Recent survey revealed
that pupils walk a distance of not less than 3 kilometers to the nearest
school. In the absence of reliable
transport and good roads, most teachers and pupils are unwilling to trek long,
especially during rainy seasons. In remote islands in the lakes, poor
water transport inhibits attendance, while safety and security concerns
discourage parents to send young kids.
Role of
Transport
- Investment in all weather
rural infrastructure (including water transport) for transporting building
and scholastic materials, improve accessibility and mobility of pupils and
teachers. Provide accommodation to teachers, IMT to students, introduce of school
buses in urban areas and enforce traffic regulations to reduce accidents.
Eliminate gender disparity in primary
and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
- Owing to
the affirmative provisions, gender enrollment
gap narrowed
as the proportion of girls in total
enrolment in primary schools improved to 49% in 2004 from 44.22% in 1990,
while at secondary level has increased from 37.2% in 1990 to 45% in 2003 and
to 46% in 2004. Expected to increase with the advent of Universal
Secondary Education.
- Challenges: High school drop out
of girls is attributed to long distance, besides lack of interest,
financial constraints, family responsibilities, sickness, early marriages
and pregnancies as well as social-cultural bias that put the girl child at a
disadvantage. Promotion of IMT to reduce
women transport burden as many girls miss school in order to help mothers in
fetching water and firewood. An integrated approach as well as
non-transport interventions would address time poverty of women and girls.
Women Empowerment:
Status and Trends
Uganda ranks 48 out of 115 in attaining
gender quality with 24.7% representation in Parliament. Affirmative action is used
to reduce gender imbalances in higher education, governance, politics, and
management. Affirmative action in education has favoured women in university
and other tertiary institutions leading to a rise from 31% in 1993/94 to 40% in
2002 and to 42% in 2004.
Remaining Challenges
- Violence against women; lack of control over
resources, high Illiteracy at 69%, while HIV/AIDS is claiming more women,
yet their bear the burden of caring HIV/AIDS patients.
- Women die from
preventable and treatable pregnancy and child-birth-related complications
that are linked to lack of timely and poor transport, absence of
ambulatory services and women lack of income to transport themselves to
the nearest health facilities.
·
Women
high time burdens translate into gendered travel patterns and transport needs.
Reducing Child Mortality: Status and Trends
- Commitment to reduce
the IMR to 78 deaths per 1000 live births by 2002 was not attained and stagnated
at about 88 deaths per 1000 live births during the period 1990-2000 while
under-five mortality rate marginally declined from 167 to 152 deaths per
1000 live births during the same period. In order for Uganda is to meet
the MDG target of 31 deaths per 1000 live births by 2015, the IMR must
reduce by more than half in 6 years (2009- 2015).
- Women and children are
also more vulnerable traffic accidents causing disability problems,
permanent injuries and death and perpetuating poverty. On average 53
accidents occur everyday comprising 6 deaths and 34 injuries, 90% of involve
pedestrians, cyclists and passengers in taxis and buses majority of whom
are of low
income. On water bodies a total of 27 accidents were reported in which 94
people perished in 2004.
- Role of transport: Government needs to step up its efforts in
monitoring and enforcing traffic regulations and strengthening the
institutions responsible for ensuring road safety. Provision of footpaths,
bridges and pedestrian crossings are pertinent while appropriate bus shelters;
adequate lighting on the streets and subways would enhance security. In
addition to promoting IMT to enhance mobility and accessibility of
services providers and households/mothers, integrated inter-sector
planning would bring services nearer while motorized transport services
would facilitate immunization campaigns; home based management of fever
and distribution of drugs.
Reduction of HIV/AIDS Prevalence:
·
Prevalence
rate stands at 7% Uganda has therefore attained .the international target owing to early intervention,
political leadership, focus on multi-sector approach resources from PEPFAR and
the Global Fund.
·
Challenges:
·
Major cause of morbidity and
mortality reducing workforce productivity, diversion of household incomes and
an increasingly dependent population of orphaned and vulnerable children.
·
Persistent differences in HIV prevalence for young
men and women aged 15-24 which are respectively, 2.4% and 5.6% imposing demands on time particularly of
women.
·
Transport activities are conduit for spread of the pandemic given the
mobile nature the workers and occupational/traffic
accidents and injuries worsen their HIV/AIDS clinical condition.
Malaria and Other diseases (Tuberculosis-TB
·
Malaria is the
leading cause of illness and death in Uganda, killing over 70,000 children
annually, accounting for over half of
all out-patient visits to health facilities. TB remains endemic in especially
among HIV-infected persons. World Health Organisation has advised GoU to
declare TB as a national emergency as Uganda continues to lag behind in meeting the global target
on detection and treatment of TB cases. Uganda is in position 15 out of 22 high burden cases that
occur every year, 60% are infectious.
·
Role of Transport: While transport is crucial
to reduce vulnerability among the poorest, findings of the UHS (2006) revealed
that cost and long distances are factors limiting their access to the health
facilities. Average distance to the nearest Government hospital is 26 km at
national level while in the Northern region was 32 km. The results also indicate that 39% of
households owned a bicycle while the most common mode of transport to a
government health facility was walking (77%).
·
The sector needs to
enhance access
to HIV prevention services and AIDS care and mitigation. It is important the Ministry implements the Policy and Guidelines for
preventing the transmission of HIV/AIDS among its personnel and various
stakeholders of the road sub-sectors. Similar policies and guidelines for rail,
water and air transport are also eminent.
·
Transport
instrumental in reliable and timely delivery of anti-malaria drugs, vaccines,
bed-nets and service providers. It has key role in disseminating information,
knowledge and understanding to promote behaviour
change and improving mobility of HIV/AIDS infected and affected families to
access health and other social services for ARVs and the
Prevention of Mother to child Transmission (PMTCT).
Sustainable Access to Safe Drinking
Water
- Access to safe drinking water stands at 60% up
from around 48% of the rural population in 2000 but delivery to rural
population remains a major challenge and a
concern for women and girl children who collect water from a distance of 5
km from the homestead, taking of 1.5 hours daily and aggravated by long
waiting times at the source, poor insecure footpaths and labour
and energy intensive methods of carrying water.
- The distribution during the 2005/06 has been
uneven with 95% in urban, 54% in rural areas, Central region better access
(66%) than other regions, lowest in Northern Uganda. Adequate drinking water is instrumental
to improve domestic hygiene reducing diseases and improving livelihood
activities.
- Transport sector need to integrate its activities
with other sectors to improve proximity in addition to promotion of household
IMT, water harvesting technologies and improvement of paths and bridges to
enhance accessibility to water sources. The sector also needs to mitigate against polluting water sources emanating from
construction activities and mismanagement of fuel products disposal.
-
Access to and Basic Sanitation:
- Access to basic
sanitation which stands at 55% for urban and 42% for rural areas. Recent
surveys indicate about 26% of households lacked kitchens, garbage disposal
inadequate in both rural and urban areas. In rural areas, makeshift
bathrooms common (37%) while in
urban areas outside bathrooms prevalent ( 52%) and shared covered pit
latrines, while close to 75% of rural and 60% of urban households lacked
hand washing facilities after toilet use. Consequently water and
sanitation related problems contribute to approximately 18% of infant
deaths in while 50% of outpatients are treated for water borne related
diseases.
- Improvement in
sanitation allows women and girls to enjoy private, dignified sanitation
and collates to the decline in infant and child morbidity and diarrhea. Widespread
use of traditional stoves and poor lighting technology is reported
to cause fatal and unhealthy conditions for women and young children who
are exposed to indoor pollutions and toxins, increased drudgery and incidences
of burning children and contributes to high levels of acute respiratory
infections (ARI) and other ailments.
·
It is
imperative for the sector to strength capacity to handle garbage collection and
integration of transport and urban land use planning. The sector also need to
look into putting in place hygienic and gender sensitive sanitation facilities
along waiting points of road high ways,
rail and water transport. Mitigation measures are necessary to prevent the spread waterborne diseases resulting from
pollution and stagnant water in uncovered borrow pits and lack of proper toilet facilities in workers
camps.
·
Policy and guidelines
for mainstreaming occupation health and safety need to be implemented to reduce work-related injuries and improve well-being of the workers and
road users. Similar guidelines and policies for water, rail and air transport
need to be developed.
Slum improvement:
Ø Uganda Urban population stands at 15.4%, 93% of which
lives in slum-like conditions vulnerable to health hazards, lacking safe water,
and sanitation facilities. Children living in slums suffer from different forms
of deprivation such as lack of good education, exposure to disease and
inadequate food. Next to IDPs, there are more
female-headed households in slum areas than in any other areas and they
continue to suffer gender discrimination
Ø
Safe drinking water, poor garbage disposal, poor shelter,
congestion of unplanned housed and dwellings units are major causes of ill
health affecting the urban poor and constrains them to move out poverty.
Ø
Integration of and use and transport system
planning needed to address the increasing urban population,
improving accessibility to health care, education, and employment, reduce
traffic accidents and collection of garbage.
Environment Sustainability:
- Uganda is currently off track on environmental
sustainability given that natural resources are declining leading to food shortages
and increased pressure on water and pasture, especially in north-eastern Uganda. The forest
cover has declined over the years, with negative repercussions for
biodiversity conservation, water regulation and agricultural productivity.
Population size and growth rate are worsening land fragmentation.
- 50%of all the Tropical High Forests on
private land is degraded, while 15 % of forest reserves is degraded, The
distance travelled to collect firewood
especially by women and children has increased between 2002 and 2005
- Transport construction
activities increase runoff causing
floods, destroying property, spreading waterborne diseases and
accelerating soil erosion, and generate solid water wastes that polluting air and
water sources with chemical and other
toxic hazardous metals. Noise and water pollution at airports at water
bodies are also major concern.
·
On the other hand, environment related factors, such as unpredictable weather patterns and climatic conditions that are manifested in heavy rains and
landslides damage transport infrastructure thereby undermining government
efforts and disrupting accessibility to essential social services.
·
Uganda has made good
strides in formulating relevant policies, laws, regulations and standards with potential
to contribute to human development. The road sub-sector has developed environment impact assessment guidelines to minimize
negative effects of the road construction activities on natural resources and
communities. The sector has yet to develop guidelines for the water, rail and
air transport and to look into the measures to reduce evictions and
displacement emanating from infrastructure development /expansion which lead to
sudden collapse of the people livelihoods and increased
strain on the natural resources where they are relocated. Better engineering of
infrastructural developments may have much greater impacts on downstream water
quality than many other on-farm interventions or widespread tree planting in
marginal agricultural
Enhancing the contribution of Transport
In
order to contribute to the above challenges and scale up best practices, it is
important that investments and policies in the transport sector are designed
with explicit objectives to contribute towards
poverty reduction and MDG goals. Adequate resources necessary to implement strategies
that address transport and travel needs of different geographical locations,
gender, ability and other socio-economic groups.
Area of further research:
- How to measure
(qualitatively and quantitatively) transport sector contribution poverty
reduction and MDGs: Still a challenge to improve
methodology to assess extent to which existing interventions reduce
poverty, gender inequalities,
morbidity, spread of HIV/AIDS, while complying with national
environment and safety/health standards.
- Pertinent
to develop formats and modalities to
collect and report data on poverty, environment and social baseline and
performance monitoring indictors that can detect changes/improvements in above
areas taking into account differences between regions, gender, age and abilities.
- Pertinent to document
impact of technologies
on both the natural resources, environment and people livelihoods to
determine appropriate mitigation measures.