Social / CSR in Uganda
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BOTSWANA, 2017/08/15
The US will probably maintain its current levels of aid to Africa despite President Donald Trump’s proposals to slash funding, according to Bill Gates, the world’s richest man.
Trump said in May his government would no longer allocate funding for family planning, a move that has the potential to undermine aid programs in the poorest nations in the world. However, with Congress in control of the budget, it’s unlikely that all cuts proposed by the Trump government will go ahead next year, Gates said in an interview in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s commercial capital.
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SOUTH SUDAN, 2017/08/03
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, prayed on Wednesday with South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda, home to a nearly million fugitives from a four-year civil war in the world's youngest country.
Around 1.8 million people have fled South Sudan since fighting broke out in December 2013, sparking what has become the world's fastest growing refugee crisis and major cross-border exodus in Africa since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
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KENYA, 2017/08/01
Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda on Thursday morning called a conference of select Cabinet ministers to chart a blueprint about Uganda's national of preparedness in relation to the upcoming elections in neighbouring Rwanda and Kenya.
The conference, sources familiar with the matter told Sunday Monitor, was attended by Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kutesa, junior Internal Affairs minister Mario Obiga, government Chief Whip Rose Nankabirwa, minister in charge of General Duties Mary Karooro Okurut, Security minister Lt Gen Henry Tumukunde and officials from the Finance ministry.
Sources, who attended, intimated that the conference largely deliberated on the August 8 Kenyan polls, which pit the incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta against four-time presidential aspirant Raila Odinga.
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BURUNDI, 2017/07/09
African citizens, activists and organisations are finding new and innovative ways to resist, organise and mobilise in the face of mounting restrictions on their rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association.
Restrictions on civic freedoms are increasing worldwide, but are being acutely felt in African nations. According to the CIVICUS Monitor – a constantly updated tool rating nations’ fundamental civic freedoms from open to closed – 43 African nations fall under the bottom three categories of closed, repressed and obstructed with only two African nations rated as open. In most African nations, freedom of expression, assembly and association are stifled by national and non-national actors through the use of restrictive legislation, policies, and judicial persecution inclunding physical attacks, threats and detention of activists and journalists. While these restrictions generally occur at the same time as civil society groups speak out in direct opposition to public policy, there is strong evidence that restrictions increase during politically sensitive periods, like elections and prior to constitutional changes on term limits of political leaders.
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UGANDA, 2017/07/09
Uganda is presently facing the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis, due to a continuous and unprecedented influx of people fleeing conflict in neighbouring South Sudan part others. The country is presently hosting over 1.27 million refugees and asylum seekers.
“To help Uganda transaction with this unprecedented situation and support the majority vulnerable refugees, the European Commission has today announced €85 million in humanitarian aid and longer term development assistance.
A lot of refugees have fled conflict in South Sudan, seeking sanctuary from violence, hatred and hunger. Uganda’s example of helping vulnerable people cope with displacement is an example for the whole region and the world. However, no country can transaction with such a high number of refugees on its own. The EU funding announced today will help our humanitarian partners working in Uganda bring some relief to those who have lost everything,” said Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides.
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UGANDA, 2016/10/29
UN engages women in Uganda to bridge digital financial gap
Women’s financial inclusion is viewed as an significant pillar to significantly increase world increase, reduce poverty and inequality.
By enabling women to invest and borrow, they will be better placed to participate in the economy.
It is against this backdrop that the United Nations’ capital investment agency, UNCDF and other partners are holding a forum on digital financial services for women in Uganda.
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UGANDA, 2016/02/10
It is exactly nine days to the much-awaited February 18, at the same time as registered Ugandan voters will begin casting their ballot at 7am across the country to pick the next president and Members of Parliament.
Other lower tier government voting will be happen in the weeks next.
Because elections are high-stake, the exercise is often fraught with suspicion, tension and, in some cases, clashes.
Uganda's politics has over the years become heavily commercialised, with the Alliance for Campaigns Finance Monitoring estimating that all the parties and individual presidential candidates in the initial two months combined spent Shs137 billion.
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BURUNDI, 2016/01/10
Burundi’s government has demanded the withdrawal of key opposition figures if peace talks, restarted in Uganda on Monday, are to continue.
Initial deputy chairman of the country’s ruling CNDD-FDDD party, Victor Burikukiye, speaking in Entebbe today said: “I would like to mention that if those who participated in the [May 2015] coup are here, we shall not continue with the talks.”
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UGANDA, 2015/12/16
Prisca Lanyero makes a living selling charcoal and washing clothes. She lives in a rented mud and straw hut, with her children, aged eight and five. Their father, a feared commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) that wrought terror in Uganda, is on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague on war crimes charges.
Speaking for the initial time to The Independent about her life as the “forced” wife of Dominic Ongwen, the alleged leader of the LRA’s Sinia Brigade, Ms Lanyero, 22, said that at the same time as she was 10 she was abducted from home by the LRA and forced to live in the Congolese bush.
At 12 years old, she was given as a wife to Ongwen, who was himself abducted as a boy on his way to school in 1990. Ongwen – the majority senior Ugandan rebel leader being prosecuted at the court next month – faces three counts of crimes against humanity, inclunding murder and enslavement, and four counts of war crimes, inclunding cruel treatment of civilians and pillaging.
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BURUNDI, 2015/11/26
Attempts to extend presidential terms in nations of the Great Lakes region such as Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda are fueling political and social tensions that could well reignite ethnically-based violence in a part of Africa with a history of genocide.
The tendency for African leaders to extend or prolong their terms in office seems to be slowly regaining momentum. Between April and November 2015, the Great Lakes region is once again at the brink of turmoil, brought about by leaders attempting to extend their terms in office in Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda.
Those who hold political office seem to have vested interests in maintaining the status quo. Paul Kagame of Rwanda, in power since the end of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, received a green light from the Senate to remain in power for an extra term or additional. Yoweri Museveni, in office since 1986 at the same time as he emerged as the victor in the Ugandan civil war, has secured a prolonged remain and is biding to extend his term again through constitutional amendment. In April 2015, Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi launched a controversial bid to extend his remain to three consecutive terms, triggering massive protests.
This culture poses a threat to peace, human rights and democracy in the region, but can still be averted for the better good.
