Browsing by Author "Ssewanyana, Sarah"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Addressing the Poor Nutrition of Ugandan Children
    (Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), 2012) Ssewanyana, Sarah; Kasirye, Ibrahim
    One out of every three young children in Uganda are short for their age, according to the 2011 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS); and the incidence of poor nutritional status is highest in the relatively better off sub region of South Western Uganda. Although poor child nutrition status is a pervasive global problem, it is mainly concentrated in a few developing countries. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 24 developing countries account for over 80 percent of the world’s 195 million children faced with stunting. Out of the 24 countries, at least 11 are from Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). Furthermore, countries in SSA have made the least progress in reducing stunting rates—from 38% to 34% between 1990 and 2008—compared to a reduction of 40% to 29% for all developing countries. Uganda is among the developing countries with the largest population of stunted children—an estimated 2.4 million children aged less than 5 years in Uganda are stunted and this places the country at the rank of 14th—based on the ranking of countries with large populations of nutritionally challenged children
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    Cost Effectiveness of Reproductive Health Interventions in Uganda: The Case for Family Planning services
    (The African Economic Research Consortium, 2013) Ssewanyana, Sarah; Kasirye, Ibrahim
    There seems to be a consensus among policymakers and politicians that innovative interventions have to be put in place to reduce the population growth rates in Uganda. The country’s population growth rate of 3.2% per annum is extremely high — even for a low income country. The above scenario is attributed to high number births per woman as measured by the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) and this has remained substantially above levels elsewhere in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA). For example, in 2006 Uganda’s TFR of 6.7 births per woman was higher than the SSA average of 5.5 births per woman. On the other hand, with an annual per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$ 300, Uganda remains one of the poorest countries in SSA. Furthermore, due to the predominance of informal activities and weak tax administration system, the country collects only 13.7 % of its GDP in taxes. As such the amount of funds available for financing health services in general and reproductive health services in particular are limited.
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    Fostering rural women nonfarm household enterprise financing through local groups
    (Economic Policy Research Centre, 2017) Guloba, Madina; Ssewanyana, Sarah; Birabwa, Elizabeth
    Rural women entrepreneurs in Uganda continue to face multiple challenges that impede their enterprise growth and expansion, despite pragmatic interventions from government and non-state actors to enhance entrepreneurship. Uganda’s female managed nonfarm household enterprises continue to be micro, informal and face bottlenecks to access high credit to grow their business as they do not have the necessary collateral that formal credit institutions demand. Hence, many resort to borrowing from locally managed community or village credit associations to start or grow their businesses and yet, these financing mechanisms are limited. The Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Programme (UWEP) should therefore ensure that the distribution of funds is equitable taking into consideration the heterogeneities across spatial areas, region, education level and size of business enterprise.
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    Government’s financing of social protection initiatives dismal
    (Economic Policy Research Centre, 2017) Guloba, Madina; Ssewanyana, Sarah; Birabwa, Elizabeth
    Vulnerabilities within the economy are many, and females are at a higher disadvantage. The need for multi-faced interventions from both state and non-state actors is essential in addressing various vulnerabilities within different social groups.While there are recognised efforts from government to protect its citizens, the limited coordination in financing priorities are not reflecting this. Such that despite expenditure allocations to domestic development in social sectors increasing, the finances allocated to Social Protection by government are still very low for the programmes to achieve social inclusiveness nationally.
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    Low literacy levels likely to impede rural women’s successbin business
    (Economic Policy Research Centre, 2017) Guloba, Madina; Ssewanyana, Sarah; Birabwa, Elizabeth
    Being literate is a prerequisite in business management and sustainability. While evidence shows that Uganda’s entrepreneurial potential is high globally, female entrepreneurs were still being presented with limited opportunities to expand their business and few tried to increase or independently manage their enterprises. Education levels for women especially in rural areas and among the youth is still low and hence most likely to miss out of government programmes that aim to uplift their livelihoods such as those targeting income enhancement amidst agricultural shortfalls. Programmes must offer mixed approaches in enterprise business chain and emphasis on adult literacy programmes along entrepreneurship is vital for rural business sustainability.
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    Oil Discovery in Uganda: Managing Expectations
    (Economic Policy Research Center, 2009) Bategeka, Lawrence; Kiiza, Julius; Ssewanyana, Sarah
    This paper discusses the management of expectations associated with the recent discovery of commercialisable oil (and gas) in Uganda. No commercial oil was flowing at the time of research and no oil revenues are expected until after 2013. The ‘early production agreement’ reached between Uganda and the oil companies (particularly Tullow Oil and Gas company) prioritizes the production of 50–100 megawatts of electricity that will be added on to the national grid by the late-2009.1 However, the additional electricity will remain below the country’s requirements. Yet, Ugandans – at the national, local government and community levels – appear to be nursing high expectations (but also apprehension) related to oil discovery. For some stakeholders, Uganda is on the verge of becoming an OPEC powerhouse. For others, oil discovery is likely to be a curse rather than a blessing. The key challenge for this paper is to understand the extent to which Uganda’s powers-that-be are effectively managing the positive expectations and the anxieties over what might go wrong.
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    Poverty and inequality dynamics in Uganda: Insights from the Uganda National Panel Surveys 2005/6 and 2009/10
    (Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), 2012) Ssewanyana, Sarah; Kasirye, Ibrahim
    While Uganda has made significant efforts in reducing the proportion of individuals and households living below the absolute poverty line, nearly 10 percent of the households continue to live in persistent or chronic poverty with significant differences across geographical areas. Of all households classified aspoor in 2009/10, nearly 49 percent were chronically poor households and as such the poor are not a homogenous group. Compared to 1992-99 period, households in Uganda were found to be more vulnerable to poverty in the period 2005/6-2009/10. These observed changes in the nature and patterns of poverty dynamics in Uganda require government to move away from universal poverty reduction interventions that continue to treat the poor as a homogenous group. Otherwise, Uganda’s achievement of the first millennium development goal of halving extreme income poverty earlier than 2015 might not be sustainable. The paper also examines the drivers of income inequality and finds that education remains the key determinant of income inequality. At the same time, income differences between regions are narrowing suggesting an indication of regional convergence on average income. While government’s fiscal targeting of the lagging areas and rural areas might explain the observed convergence in average income across geographical areas, there are other emerging development challenges that require further refinement for the current targeting. Access to public extension programs such as the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), which are intended to enhance agricultural production and productivity is skewed to well-to-do households and not evenly distributed across region. Similar observations are noted in terms of access to community infrastructure. There is also need to ensure that the benefit of economic growth reach the poorest in a way that expands their opportunities.
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    Righting Resource-Curse Wrongs in Uganda: The Case of Oil Discovery and the Management of Popular Expectations
    (Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), 2011) Kiiza, Julius; Bategeka, Lawrence; Ssewanyana, Sarah
    This paper discusses the management of expectations associated with the recent discovery of commercializable oil in Uganda. Our motivation is simultaneously theoretical and pragmatic. Theoretically, resource abundance oftentimes begets a natural resource-curse, that is, the tendency for resource-rich countries to attain poorer developmental outcomes than resourcepoor countries (Auty, 1993; Collier et al, 2004). Practically, oil development in Uganda appears set to create winners and losers. Four categories of winners are spelt out in Uganda’s Oil and Gas Policy – the central government; the oil companies; the district local governments of the oilrich areas; and the land owners. The oil-rich lands have not been nationalized to make all Ugandans winners. Bunyoro-Kitara Kingdom (hereafter: ‘Bunyoro Kingdom’) also complains that it has been left out. Yet, it has a historical and cultural claim over the oil-rich lands. Sections of the local community, whose environment could be contaminated by oil-spills, are also concerned that no context-specific environmental safeguards have been developed.