Once described as ‘the pearl of Africa’ because of its lush fertility, Uganda has seen its huge potential stunted by dictatorship and civil war.
Half a million people died under Idi Amin’s reign of terror in the 1970s, while in 1986 another terrible conflict dawned in the north.
At war with the government, rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) used children as soldiers or sex slaves. Before the LRA was driven into the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008, tens of thousands of civilians had been killed or kidnapped. Some 1.6 million people had fled their homes.
Most Ugandans work as small-scale farmers and struggle to grow enough to feed their households – while cash crops are vulnerable to fluctuating global prices.
Up to 20 per cent of Uganda’s children aged six to 17 have lost at least one parent, mostly to HIV and conflict. Meanwhile, increased droughts and flooding have had a knock-on impact on malaria and water-borne diseases.
A workshop of Tearfund partners recently identified poor governance as a key cause of poverty, but acknowledged the church’s complicity or silence in the face of corrupt or unjust practices. Participants resolved to transform society through good citizenship, integrity and servant leadership.