Urban Hunger In Kampala

Urban Hunger comes to Uganda If you work hard and long, but don't earn much much, you and your family will live on the edge in constant jeopardy of economic, social, emotional and relational collapse. Millions of our fellow citizens in this nation know this because they live it daily. In a tiny one-room shack in a Kampala slum, slum Ssentamu and his family are the new faces of urban poverty - squeezed by rising food prices and trapped in a cycle of vice. Hunger is stalking kampala’s shanty towns just as it stalks the parched pastures es of the north and the North East.. “Things are very expe expensive at the moment,” says Ssentamu,, puffing on a cigarette, the age-old anathema to hunger that the destitute cling to in the 21st century. “I go to the market when I have money. I buy whatever food ood I can with the money I have.” As the global credit crunch puts brakes rakes on growing economies economies, the fear is that developed countries will now cut back on aid as they watch their revenues decrease. For now though though, the credit crunch seems rather er like a bad joke when viewed from the narrow, muddy alleys of Katanga.. “We feel bad and bitter that we don’t get any food when we know that people outside the cities are being given food,” says another young man.. “Here I don’t see anything getting any better.” Development and relief agencies have poured most of their efforts to stem hunger in rural areas. are Most food programs and funds have largely been concentrated in solving hunger in the country side. However, a glaring laring imbalance exists because poor countries are impoverished as a whole, whole whether in their rural or urban rban areas. While rural Uganda’s hunger problem has been mainly due to long-lasting lasting factors such as drought, fami famine, and war, hunger in the cities is a fairly recent phenomenon. Escalating food prices as well the age age-old problem of food shortage caused by poverty are also devastating Uganda’s cities. The urban poor in Uganda are the new face of hunger in a country where millions now require humanitarian itarian assistance due to poor rains, high food prices, conflict, animal disease, inflation and poverty. "The situation of the urban poor has worsened, they are now getting more vulnerable; it is no longer just the old caseload of drought drought-affected affected people; the urban poor need assistance as they th continue to be adversely affected by rising food prices (WFP).” "Millions of people live l in slums and "They are at the mercy of huge fluctuations in the price of basic family food that strip their purchasing power and deplete their savings." ngs." "This is in addition to funds already being used to feed the hungry hungr in the region." The emergency is exacerbated by the erosion of livelihoods among the landless and the urban poor. Disease outbreaks fuelled by poor hygiene and sanitation, poor health and nutrition

services, including low immunisation coverage, are additional high risks especially for mothers and children. In July 2009, Uganda is experiencing widespread food insecurity, with millions needing food assistance and an estimated 70 percent of the overall population affected by rising food prices. Staple food prices have risen by 30-50 percent over the past year, putting many groups at risk of hunger. A main cause of the price rise is the significant drop in food production caused by a changing climate and a general tendency towards urbanisation mainly in the highly food- productive central region." The northeastern region is experiencing a prolonged dry spell and crop diseases, in addition to conflict and underdevelopment. There is a serious concern that a third consecutive year of widespread crop failure could afflict the region, which is fast approaching a worst-case food security scenario. The likelihood of drought this cropping season is high, following the failure of rains from October 2008 to July 2009. This combination of drought and the knock-on effect of global food price increases could affect a significant portion of the population both Rural and Urban.

Peter Eriki