UK extends Shs134b for nutrition in Karamoja

Hungry people wait for relief food at a community centre. File photo

KAMPALA- The UK Department for International Development (DfID) has committed an additional $37m (about Shs133.7b) to address malnutrition concerns in the Karamoja Sub-region.

The funding was announced by DfID’s advisor in Uganda, Mr Ben Cattermoul, during a review of Karamoja Integrated Development Plan (KIDP) at the Office of the Prime Minister on Tuesday.

KIDP is a medium-term development framework tailored towards addressing development-related challenges in Karamoja. It is part of the Peace, Recovery and Development Programme.

Mr Cattermoul said the UK government has since 2013 worked towards alleviating poverty through a $70m (Shs250b) programme that has supported 290,000 people with treatment of malnutrition, and another 170,000 to ease access to safe water. He said the programme also had two million head of livestock vaccinated and supported the development of early warning systems against drought.

“It is the right time to invest in efforts to prevent malnutrition. Moving from malnutrition treatment to malnutrition prevention will reduce the number of very expensive treatment interventions in favour of wider efforts to strengthen health systems and test approaches to prevent malnutrition,” he said.

The new Shs133.7b funding will be injected into fighting acute malnutrition; strengthening health service planning and delivery; improving access to supplements that prevent deficiencies for mothers and children; and testing and scaling innovative malnutrition prevention initiatives – including through crop security.

Sustainability
The British High Commission, in a statement, said the programme will have a strong focus on sustainability – moving from treatment to prevention of malnutrition and is expected to improve nutrition for more than 450,000 children and mothers, including 100,000 people accessing newly introduced bio-fortified crops; and another 270,000 accessing nutrition supplements while more than 15,000 people will benefit from access to clean water at health facilities.

Currently, nearly 74 per cent of the population in Karamoja is said to live below the poverty line and suffer acute malnutrition.