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Uganda Social Welfare
Social services were an important factor in government
planning in the late 1980s, both to support efforts to
improve
health care and to upgrade living standards in general.
Providing
running water in rural areas was a high priority, although
even
small improvements in water supplies were costly. Projects
in the
late 1980s focused on drilling wells, protecting springs,
replacing and repairing pumps, and training community
workers to
oversee water systems. The government also recognized that
many
people had to walk several kilometers to carry water to
their
homes and declared its intention to extend pipelines into
rural
areas. Sewage systems, too, were considered an important
but
expensive improvement. Even so, many urban pipelines and
septic
tanks were in disrepair, and most rural areas lacked
pipelines or
sewage treatment facilities. Government workers began
installing
sewage systems in several small towns, including Rakai,
Nebbi,
and Bushenyi, in 1988.
Housing was an important symbol of development in
Uganda
under the NRM government. Providing low-cost urban housing
was a
high government priority. Projects in Masaka, Mbarara,
Arua, and
Namuwongo exceeded government spending projections in 1988
and
1989. In 1990 at least three housing projects were
underway in
Kampola. Estimates were that some 8,000 housing units
needed to
be built each year throughout the 1990s in urban areas
alone to
keep pace with population growth. Given the shortage of
investment funds and the high cost of imported
construction
materials, it was unlikely that such a goal would be met.
Rural housing development was also an important goal,
but in
the late 1980s, most rural residents built their own
homes.
Although these were often mud-and-wattle huts, they were,
nonetheless, a source of pride. Having a well-kept home
was
important to many Ugandans, even the very poor. People
considered
deteriorating housing standards a symbol of social
disintegration, one that characterized a few
poverty-stricken
areas and those hardest hit by AIDS. Village cooperative
societies in the Luwero region organized brick-making
factories
in 1988 and 1989, and the government was attempting to
organize
similar projects in other areas. Other government programs
aimed
at increasing credit opportunities and improving materials
and
transportation facilities for rural homebuilders. In the
late
1980s, housing assistance was received from Austria,
Britain,
Finland, and the Netherlands.
One social problem with tragic implications for
Uganda's
future was the children--more than 1.5 million of them,
almost 10
percent of the population--who had been orphaned by the
spread of
warfare or by AIDS in the late 1970s and early 1980s. By
1990 the
number of war orphans alone was estimated at more than
half a
million. No reliable figures were available for AIDS
orphans, but
one study predicted that their number would grow over the
next
twenty years to 4 to 5 million.
Several thousands of these orphans were young boys who
had
attached themselves to the army. By the late 1980s, the
government had established a few schools to provide
boarding
facilities and primary education for these kadogos,
or
child-soldiers. Others sometimes lived on city streets or
in
small groups without any regular supervision. Many
Ugandans
accepted the responsibility for caring for others'
children, but
this responsibility was generally believed to apply only
within
the boundaries of the extended family. Many children had
lost a
large number of relatives, in addition to their parents,
and some
orphans chose to avoid living with relatives they did not
know
well. As a result, neither government nor private agencies
were
able to surmount the economic and social obstacles to
programs
for immediate care for orphans. One of several ominous
implications of this failure was that orphans and
kadogos
could remain on the periphery of society for the rest of
their
lives.
* * *
Despite the political turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s,
publications by several government ministries and the
Office of
the President testify to the national commitment to
disseminating
information about Uganda. C. Obbo's research on women in
Uganda
and G. Ibiringa's and D. Mudoola's political analyses are
among
the many contributions by Ugandan scholars to the growing
understanding of their society. Makerere Institute of
Social
Research also publishes frequent reports by international
researchers in Uganda.
Two compilations of essays assessing Uganda's social
and
political development in the 1980s are Uganda Now,
edited
by H. Hansen and M. Twaddle, and Conflict Resolution in
Uganda, edited by K. Rupesinghe. Numerous works by N.
Kasfir
have also contributed an understanding of Uganda's
political
environment. Volumes in the Ethnographic Survey of Africa
series
by G. Huntingford, P. Gulliver and P.H. Gulliver, M.
Fallers, and
J. La Fontaine preserve Uganda's rich cultural heritage in
the
ethnographic present. Field reports and ethnographic
analyses
from the decades just before and after independence also
provide
much of the basis for the 1980s' understanding of Ugandan
society. These publications include works by J. Beattie,
L.
Fallers, L. Mair, and A. Richards on Bantu-speaking
societies of
the south; H. Morris on Uganda's once-thriving Asian
community;
and A. Southall's publications on Alur society and
acculturation
in other areas. Works by B. Langlands survey Uganda's
social and
physical geography.
Several scholars have applied class analysis and
dependency
theory to Ugandan society without becoming mired in
debates over
geopolitical alignment. Examples of such works are M.
Mamdani's
Politics and Class Formation in Uganda; S. Bunker's
Double Dependency and Constraints on Class Formation in
Bugisu, Uganda and Peasants Against the State;
and J.
Vincent's African Elite and Teso in
Transformation.
S. Heyneman's research on education in the 1970s and early
1980s
demonstrates the national commitment to education.
Information on
AIDS is available in 1988 and 1989 publications by the
World
Health Organization and the International Committee of the
Red
Cross. (For further information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1990
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