Good governance key in Karamoja’s growth

Sunday Monitor recently ran a distressing story titled “Starving residents flee Kotido in search of food”. The imagery is bleak: communities abandoning their homes, trekking to unfamiliar places in the hope of finding a meal. 

It is a sobering reminder that for many in Karamoja Sub-region, hunger is not a seasonal misfortune—it is a way of life. Yet this reality is neither natural nor inevitable. 

Karamoja’s suffering is not simply the result of climate change or geography; it is the direct outcome of poor leadership and decades of government neglect. For more than 60 years, the sub-region has existed on the margins of Uganda’s development agenda—a forgotten land kept alive by relief food, hollow speeches and the occasional donor-funded project. What has Karamoja received in return for its loyalty to successive governments, including the current National Resistance Movement (NRM)? A deepening dependency on handouts.

The so-called interventions— Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF), Development Response to Displacement Impacts Project (DRDIP) and others—have come and gone, with little to show on the ground. What persists is not transformation but survival. The central government has entrenched a culture where people queue for aid rather than build for the future. 

Tragically, many of Karamoja’s own leaders have embraced this arrangement, offering silence instead of advocacy, allegiance to government instead of accountability. When a generation grows up in this system, work loses meaning, and cattle rustling becomes an economic strategy. Hunger is normalised, and poverty is inherited.

 And while the security situation has improved in recent years, land grabbing by non-natives is prevalent, and food insecurity remains unresolved, pushing families to flee not from war, but from empty kitchens. Amid this despair, there are glimpses of hope. 

The humanitarian efforts of people like Mr Robert Kayanja, senior pastor at Kampala Miracle Centre, who has initiated agricultural projects and water access in parts of Karamoja, prove that with will and direction, change is possible.

But such efforts, while commendable, are not a substitute for effective governance. If individuals and faith-based groups can deliver impact, why can't the government do more? Why are Karamoja’s leaders not demanding meaningful affirmative action and long-term solutions—irrigation schemes, school feeding programmes and roads to connect farmers to markets? The answer lies in political choices. Karamoja’s fate cannot change unless its people demand more from their leaders: local and national. 

The upcoming elections offer a defining moment. A vote is not just a civic duty; it is a tool for liberation. It is time for Karamoja to elect leaders who feel the people’s hunger and carry their hopes with integrity. 

The sub-region must reject those who have overseen decades of stagnation and instead embrace a new leadership, one that understands that governance is not about leaders’ appearances in Kampala but transforming broken systems into functional ones that serve the locals. Dear Karamoja, you now face a choice; between hunger and good governance. Choose policies, not dependence.

Karamoja’s fate cannot change unless its people demand more from their leaders ”

The author, Mr Festo Nkwatsibwe Kajura is a member of the National Resistance Movement (NRM)[email protected]