Poverty levels have annoyingly remained high so much that millions of Ugandans are going hungry, a new report has revealed.
According to a new report by an NGO, Twaweza, 84% of Ugandans are dissatisfied with the way the country’s economy is being managed, blaming this for their state of poverty. Further, 71% of the population is dissatisfied with the creation of job and income generation opportunities.
The report adds that majority of citizens say they have faced food insecurity in the past three months: 7 out of 10 say that they had to skip a meal because of a lack of food (75%), that their household ran out of food (69%), and they were hungry but did not eat (67%).
“Half of the population has gone a whole day without eating in the past three months,” the report says, adding that more than half of Ugandans mention poverty and food insecurity as the main problems facing their households: 1 out of 4 cite poverty directly (26%), and a further 1 out of 7 mention hunger or drought (15%) and the high cost of living (14%).
Even higher numbers have been worried about running out of food in the past three months (85%), the report says, adding that food stress is markedly higher in Uganda than in Kenya across all of these measures.
These findings were released by Twaweza in a research brief titled Under pressure? Ugandans’ opinions and experiences of poverty and financial inclusion. The brief is based on data from Sauti za Wananchi, Africa’s first nationally representative high-frequency mobile phone survey. The findings are based on data collected from 1,925 respondents across Uganda in October 2017.
Corruption was ranked as the biggest problem for the country, with 80% of respondents stating so. However, on a positive note, 62 percent were satisfied with the government in ensuring security. The survey was conducted in October 2017.
