Karamoja Library

This study explored the use of participatory epidemiology (PE) to estimate the annual incidences of human diseases in Karamoja, Uganda, with emphasis on diseases associated with water. Adapted PE methods were used successfully to estimate disease incidences in young children and adults, and revealed a rich knowledge on the clinical signs and causes of diseases. The report concludes that PE could be useful for overcoming some of the spatial limitations of the health surveillance system in Karamoja, and the temporal limitations of bi-annual food security and nutrition assessments.

This report presents the findings of a review of land issues in Karamoja, with a particular focus on trends in privatization of communal lands and its impacts on agro-pastoral livelihoods.

In November 2021 United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a new global localization agenda that aims to shift more funding and decision-making to local organizations and groups. Under this agenda, USAID positioned local leadership over development and humanitarian assistance as important for aid effectiveness, equity, and sustainability.

Water resources support key sectors of the economy namely: hydropower generation, agriculture, fisheries, domestic water supply, industry and navigation among others. However, the efficiency and sustainability of water utilization has recently been a concern in Uganda mainly due to inadequate sectoral collaboration in planning and implementation, increasing frequency of floods and droughts, environmental degradation and pollution of water resources.

Water and rangeland resources are the basis for livestock production in pastoralist areas of Africa and therefore have major impacts on pastoral livelihoods. Households with insufficient access to water or productive rangeland experience suboptimal herd growth and production, with associated negative impacts on the income and nutritious foods that livestock provide. In common with other African pastoralist and agropastoralist areas,

A genuine localized approach to early warning should shift the approach to more of a partnership and coacceptance of the strengths and weaknesses of indigenous and conventional systems.

To gauge understanding of how KRSU’s work benefits and is utilized in Karamoja, a rapid review was conducted in November and December 2023. The review involved face-to-face interviews with a number of the organization’s partners – including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), universities, academics, and donors.

This analysis is motivated by the concerns of international donors and other stakeholders regarding the persistent challenges in advancing educational outcomes for the majority of the population in the Karamoja sub-region of Uganda. Substantial improvements in enrolment and retention rates in Karamoja have occurred over the past eight years, but these remain significantly behind the national average, and drop-out rates after primary school are extremely high, especially for female students.i This analysis uses existing primary and secondary data to investigate various approaches for education in the sub-region.

Water and rangeland resources are the basis for livestock production in pastoralist areas of Africa and therefore have major impacts on pastoral livelihoods. Households with insufficient access to water or productive rangeland experience suboptimal herd growth and production, with associated negative impacts on the income and nutritious foods that livestock provide.

An effective early warning system (EWS) is a prerequisite for timely response to avert and mitigate the impacts of disasters that affect pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities. Whereas there exist various forms of EWS in Uganda, the main concerns have been whether the early warning information is timely, accurate, accessible, and elicits early action. These questions point at inefficiencies in the conventional EWS in the country and the importance of the indigenous early warning system (IEWS) used by rural communities. These indigenous systems are especially important where conventional early warning information is inaccessible or coarse and therefore not suitable for guiding location-specific decisions.

This real-time review aims to document the events that led to Karamoja’s hunger crisis in 2022, the reporting of the worsening situation by early warning systems, and the responses of the Government of Uganda and the international aid community. The review took place from the September 27–October 21, 2022.

In July 2022 the Ugandan media reported that 900 people had died of hunger or hunger-related diseases in the Karamoja sub-region since February 2022, and that 8 out of 10 households had limited or no food.i