Comprising 351 pages, the 2024 census final report had its authors go a long way to demonstrate the level of accomplishment and quality of life the majority of Ugandans are living.
Access to and ownership of land is one of the proxy indicators the census report authors leveraged to paint a picture. The report, in some part, reflects on the number of people in each of the country’s statistical subregions who own the land on which they live, work, or operate from. 33% of adults living in rural areas own land compared to urban Ugandan areas where only 24% own some land.
In rural areas, you have 13.5m adults aged 18 and above, of whom 9m (or 67%) don’t own any land at all. In comparison, urban Uganda, which has 8.7 million people dwelling there, has 6.6 million (or 76%) of them owning no land at all.
When it comes to subregions, Kampala City has 956,355 adults aged 18 and above dwelling there, of whom 806,138, or 84%, own no land at all.
The report shows that of the 9.72 million of Uganda’s male adults aged 18 years and above, 6.2 million, or 63%, do not own land at all. Only 3.6m, or 37%, do. When it comes to female adults (aged 18 & above), they number 12.5m, of whom only 3m, or 24%, own land. A whopping 9.5m, or 76%, don’t own any.
Still on this same welfare proxy indicator, the problem of landlessness is more pronounced among urban dwellers than among the rural population.
Among the 5.5m adults in Buganda, 4.4m, or 80%, own no land at all. And the following is how other subregions fare: Busoga has 2,044,906 adults, 1.5 million or 78% of whom are landless, and Bukedi has 1,118,350 adults, of whom 830,453 or 74% are landless.
Bugisu’s adult population is at 943,455, of whom 640,796, or 68%, are landless; Sebei has 184,430 adults, of whom 65% are landless; Teso has 1,140,233 adults, of whom 63% are landless; Karamoja has 642,806 adults, of whom 59% are landless; Lango has 1.3 million adults, of whom 54% are landless, and Acholi has 996,397 adults, 63% of whom are landless.
Landlessness among adults in other statistical subregions stands as follows: West Nile 66%, Madi 70%, Bunyoro 72%, Tooro 64%, Rwenzori 64%, Ankole 65%, and Kigezi 56%.
Among the uneducated Ugandans, landlessness stands at 72%, primary school dropouts at 65%, among those who completed primary 67%, among those with some secondary education 77.4%, and among those who completed secondary 77.3%. And among children aged 10-17 years, land ownership is at 4.2% for males and at 3.6% among females.
Among the youths aged 18-30 years, land ownership is at 21% among males and 14% among females. Children become landowners mainly through bequeathment and inheritance. Among older persons (aged 60 and above), land ownership is at 61% among males and 44% among females.
The different population groups who the census enumerators assessed regarding land ownership as a welfare proxy indicator totaled up to 22,234,988, of whom only 6.6 million, or 30%, owned land. A whopping 15.6m, or 70%, don’t own any.
As UBOS governing board chairman Dr. Albert Byamugisha has suggested, this thought-provoking data and statistics ought not to dispirit the leaders and decision-makers of this country but to only guide them onto the journey of evidence-based decision-making while designing the appropriate interventions aimed at mitigating the situation.
