Uganda Bureau of Statistics’ (UBOS) recent report sounds the alarm on persistent gaps in service delivery, urging the government and stakeholders to implement sweeping reforms.

Drawing from nationwide data, the report highlights inefficiencies in resource allocation, technology integration, and inclusivity. Experts stress that addressing these issues is crucial for equitable and sustainable development.

According to the report, more than 68% of public service projects face delays due to poor coordination among implementing agencies, while 42% of citizens express dissatisfaction with public services, citing inadequate access to healthcare, education, and other essential facilities.

The dissatisfaction is particularly evident in rural areas, where 56% of respondents report difficulties in accessing basic services compared to 24% in urban centers. These findings point to systemic challenges that hinder progress across several sectors, including healthcare, education, and infrastructure.

The report calls for urgent reforms, starting with improving monitoring and evaluation systems to ensure better resource allocation. With 30% of budgeted funds reportedly misallocated, implementing real-time project tracking systems could significantly reduce inefficiencies and ensure funds are directed where they are needed most.

Another key area is the integration of technology into service delivery. The report reveals that only 12% of service points nationwide have adopted digital platforms, which leads to delays and further inefficiencies. By accelerating the rollout of e-governance systems, the government could potentially cut service delivery time by 40%.

Moreover, the report underscores the importance of enhancing public-private partnerships to fill resource gaps in critical sectors. In several successful case studies, such collaborations have improved service outcomes by over 50%.

A particular focus is needed on empowering marginalized groups, including women, who remain underrepresented in the public service sector. With only 8% of service delivery roles occupied by women, targeted policies aimed at promoting inclusivity could contribute to more equitable and effective service delivery.

Despite significant investments, the report highlights that 35% of healthcare facilities do not meet operational standards, and 25% of schools lack essential amenities such as electricity and clean water. Rural areas, in particular, are severely impacted, with 60% of rural roads deemed impassable during the rainy season, further hindering service delivery.

A key issue is also the shortage of trained personnel, with 15% of critical service positions vacant and 70% of service providers citing inadequate training as a barrier to effective performance.

In response to the findings, government representatives have pledged to allocate additional resources to underperforming sectors, while civil society groups stress the need for greater accountability, particularly in rural regions.

Senior officials, speaking at the unveiling of the report, emphasized the importance of prioritizing efficiency and inclusivity to ensure that no citizen is left behind.

As the government prepares to address these challenges, the recommendations provided by the report offer a roadmap for improving service delivery across the country. With the right reforms, experts believe it is possible to achieve an 80% satisfaction rate in public services within the next five years.

This data-driven call to action presents an opportunity to transform public service delivery and ensure a more responsive and equitable system for all.

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The phrase households in subsistence way of life has for long been used by President Museveni to describe Uganda’s materially most needy and deprived households.

These are groups of people living and eating together but undergoing a lot of material deprivation because they lack financial means to adequately meet life’s most basic needs.

They chiefly thrive on rudimentary farming practices, on gathering and on hunting. They barely have any ascertainable income source. And in Uganda, the whole country is comprised of 10.7m households with an average of 4.2 persons per household.

Of the 10.7m households, 3.5m fall under the subsistence category which sometimes the President refers to as ekidda kyonka (loosely translated to imply those who are working and living hand to mouth-if they work at all).

The UBOS 2024 census final report shows the proportion of the country’s population (of roughly 46m people) or proportion of people who live under subsistence category in each of Uganda’s statistical regions.

West Nile has 54%, Karamoja 71%, Kigezi 33%, Ankole 28%, Rwenzori 37%, Bunyoro 31%, Kampala 1.7%, Buganda 17%, Busoga 38%, Bukedi 50%, Bugisu 41%, Sebei 41%, Teso 47%, Lango 48%, Acholi 50% and Madi 47%.

Mukiza and Byamugisha, who respectively wrote the foreword and preface for the 2024 census final report, have since implored researchers, policy makers, CSOs, development partners and government officials to leverage on the census findings to engage in evidence-based advocacy, policymaking and resource allocation while designing the appropriate interventions aimed at alleviating material deprivation in the different sub regions of the country.

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In a bid to reduce on the number of households still gripped in subsistence economic activities and way of survival (mainly through rudimentary agriculture, gathering & hunting), President Museveni came up with Parish Development Model (PDM) under his current term of government.

And according to Secretary to Treasury Ramathan Goobi, as of last November Shs2.06trn had been given out or disbursed to the targeted households through a total of 10,589 parishes.

The programme intervention seeks to impact 3.5m households of Uganda which the latest census confirmed to be under the subsistence way of life. President Museveni has been on a countrywide tour of the country to ascertain how well the PDM programme is performing.

He has been outspoken against lower level local government officials who have been acting corruptly while implementing the programme. He rightly fears that, if not identified and sanctioned early, such saboteurs can frustrate and fail his otherwise well-resourced and well-intentioned programme.

In the 2024 census final report, authored by some of Uganda’s most eminent statisticians led by Dr. Albert Byamugisha and Dr. Chris Mukiza, it’s illustrated how the different regions of the country have faired under the Parish Development Model.

Whereas Busoga is the worst-performing and therefore the least impacted, with only 14% of the intended households benefiting, Sebei and Kampala Sub regions are so far the best-performing with 76% and 69% of the intended households benefiting respectively.

The 2024 census report authors define subsistence households as those whose members can’t adequately afford or meet their most basic daily needs. And it’s that state of affairs that the PDM intervention seeks to mitigate.

The census final report indicates that in Ankole, only 31% of the intended households had been impacted by PDM as of last November. The other sub regions faired as follows: Rwenzori 29%, Kigezi 28.4%, Tooro 34%, Bunyoro 21%, Buganda 23%, Bukedi 18%, Bugisu 44%, Lango 18%, Karamoja 20%, Acholi 22%, Madi 23% and West Nile 18%.

As defined under the census survey report language, a household is a group of people who live and eat together. The census report shows that Uganda currently has 10.7m households of which 3.5m fall under subsistence way of life and according to the President, these require urgent rescue.

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Comprising of 351 pages, the 2024 census final report had it’s authors go a long way to demonstrate the level of accomplishment and quality of life majority 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 sub regions 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 8.7m people dwelling there, has 6.6m (or 76%) of them owning no land at all.

When it comes to sub regions, 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 9.72m of Uganda’s male adults aged 18 years and above, 6.2m 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 sub regions fair: Busoga has 2,044,906 adults 1.5m 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% is landless; Teso has 1,140,233 adults of whom 63% are landless; Karamoja has 642,806 adults of whom 59% are landless; Lango has 1.3m adults of whom 54% are landless and Acholi has 996,397 adults 63% of whom are landless.

Landlessness among adults in other statistical sub regions 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 female ones.

Among the youths aged 18-30 years, land ownership is at 21% among males and 14% among females. Children become land owners 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 totalled up to 22,234,988 of whom only 6.6m 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 though-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.

In strict adherence to the standard reflected under the globally-accepted eight Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) questions, the UBOS enumerators prudently used the May 2024 census enumeration exercise to ask people in Uganda’s 10.7m households the appropriate food security-related questions.

Specifically, these are questions like how often household members ever worry about not being sure of getting their next meal, how often do they go a day without food, how often are they compelled to eat less because of financial constraints in the household, how often do they fail to put a meal on table and how often do they generally encounter difficulties accessing food etc.

Globally, it’s through adhering to those 8 FIES questions that governments and other stakeholders get to establish food security levels or even food insecurity-both moderately and severely through public surveying. Using the above referenced FAO-approved methodology, the UBOS enumerators were able to assess the extent to which the food security situation in Uganda complies with the ideals enshrined in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 2.

This specific SDG seeks to achieve for communities food security, improved nutrition, hunger elimination and promotion of sustainable agriculture. The same objectives are replicated under AU’s Africa-wide Agenda 2063, the EAC Vision and Uganda’s own Vision 2040.

In response to the enumerators’ questions, respondents representing each of the 10.7m households shared their food security-related experiences as encountered during the 12 months preceding the census months of May 2024.

THE FINDINGS:
And gratefully, it was established that not less than 54% of the households in Uganda are food secure, the remainder being moderately insecure and a few severely food insecure. Food insecure households implies families which experience frequent and prolonged periods of insufficient food intake largely due to lack of money and other related constraints.

Such financially vulnerable households are forced to skip meals or even taking a day or days without meals. That is categorised to be severely food insecure.

The newly released 2024 final census report shows that the statistical region of Karamoja has the highest number of households enduring food insecurity at 63% and Ankole had the lowest at 18%.

The other statistical sub regions of Uganda faired as follows: 63% of the households in Kampala are food secure; 69% in Buganda are too besides 50% in Busoga and 31% in Bukedi.

Other statistical regions ranked as follows in terms of household level food security: Bugisu 41%, Sebei 47%, Teso 28%, Karamoja 19% (meaning food insecurity is at 81% there), Lango 38%, Acholi 51%, West Nile 31%, Madi 38%, Bunyoro 63%, Tooro 67%, Rwenzori 52%, Ankole 70% and Kigezi 61%.

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The final report for the 2024 census exercise is out and it shows general improvement in the quality of life majority Ugandans are living.

The country roughly has 46m people of whom 44.4m live in well designated households (technically categorised as the household population) and another 1.6m are categorised to be the non-household population.

This latter category refers to people who reside in establishments like hotels. The same category comprises of others who were enumerated from the streets like street children, employment camps, diplomatic residences and others in transit (who where basically enumerated as travellers in buses etc).

In total, Uganda has 10.7m households, which the report defines as a group of people who live and eat together. The average size of the Ugandan household is established to be comprising of 4.2 persons compared to 2014 when it was 4.7 per household. And briefly, this is how it has evolved over decades: 4.7 during the 1969 census and 4.8 in 1991.

When it comes to how decently and how well members of these households (the 44.4m people) live, the report shows that 69% of the 10.7m households reported to have their members or occupants owning at least one pair of shoes and more.

The same 69% of households confirmed having each and everyone of their members or inhabitants having at least 2 sets of clothing and more. This indicates improvement in ordinary Ugandans’ quality of life inspite of all the other challenges.

UBOS census enumerators obtained this information through putting specific questions to households’ heads and members during the actual census exercise.

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Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) has finally released the final report containing the ultimate findings from the 2024 National Population & Housing Census exercise that was conducted last May. This was the 6th time such exercise, ordinarily done every 10 years, was being conducted since Uganda attained independence in 1962.

THE LAND CRISIS:
Because without it, activities relating to agricultural, housing construction and industrial work can’t be conducted, land is a fundamental resource for the economic development of Uganda.

Without land securely being available, not even President Museveni can, in a viable way, talk about Uganda being synonymous with effective investment and productivity.

Even under the UN agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (specifically Goal number 1) references land and requires that people in any country don’t only own land but also possess legally recognisable documentation evidencing their ownership of the same. That’s how important land is regarding human development, economic transformation and environmental sustainability.

On page 162 of the 2024 final census report of 352 pages, UBOS establishes that of the roughly 46m people we currently have in Uganda, only 7,392,769 (roughly 17%) have any form of land ownership.

During the emuneration exercise each of the enumerated adult was asked land ownership-related questions and it regrettably turned out that as many as more than 38m aren’t possessed with any form of land ownership.

This is sad and humbling but the good news is that this latest finding by UBOS will place people in government, policy makers and other makers of fundamental decisions in an enabling position to design appropriate interventions to mitigate that anomalous situation-going forward.

The respondents were asked to confirm whether they own any land-be it for agricultural or non-agricultural purposes. And more than 38m revealed they didn’t own any land for whatever purpose either individually or jointly with someone else.

The situation is more disturbing among younger Ugandans than among more aged ones. It was notoriously established that among those aged 17 years and below, only 4% own land yet its at 51% among those aged 60 years and more. Among those aged 18 years and more, 6.6m own land and a whopping 15.6m don’t own any.

When it comes to gender disaggregation, the UBOS report shows that land ownership among adult males stood at 37% and 24% among females. Of the roughly 7.4m Ugandans owning land, only 58% have relevant documentation authenticating their ownership of the same.

The implication of all this is that a whopping 42% merely own land without any accompanying documentation. In simple terms, documentation would signify people having titles for the land they claim to be theirs under the different land tenure systems namely customary, freehold, leasehold or even mailo. These are the four land tenure systems the Ugandan Constitution recognizes.

This more than 40% proportion of the land-owning population, that is vulnerable due to absence of registered land rights, is what President Museveni is always having in mind when he insists on the need to have Bibanja owners (who merely have handwritten agreements) enrolled on a register, individually registered and issued with land titles.

It’s easier to enforce one’s land-related rights once registration is relied upon to prove and evidence that conclusive ownership that comes with it.

The geographical jurisdiction of Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA which is basically Kampala district) has the highest number of registered land owners (mostly freehold) and 81% of land owners have registered ownership in the KCCA territory. Registration is lowest in Lango sub region at just 29%!

Other regions or sub regions of Uganda fair as follows when it comes to registered land ownership: Bunyoro 56%, Buganda 77%, Ankole 66%, Kigezi 71%, Rwenzori 66%, Toro 64%, Busoga 69%, Bukedi (Tororo etc) 65%, Bugisu 70%, Sebei 52%, Teso 46%, Lango 29%, Karamoja 43%, Acholi 44%, Madi 33% and West Nile 30%.

In his preface to the report, UBOS Chairman Dr. Albert Byamugisha implores stakeholders like policy makers, planners, researchers, private sector, the CSOs and development partners not to merely resent such intriguing census findings but to closely work with government towards mitigation while advocating for the enactment of appropriate interventions.

It’s Byamugisha’s view, as corroborated by UBOS Executive Director Dr. Chris Mukiza in the foreword to the report, that the final census report contains high quality statistical information, which state and non-state actors should use to engage in evidence-based decision-making in order to foster sustainable and inclusive development for the country.

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