Ugandan Minister of State and Gender Rukia Nakadama on Friday at the opening of a forum on gender and preventive technologies in the country's capital, Kampala, called on leaders to strengthen efforts and increase resources to prevent the spread of HIV among women. "New and long-term [HIV] prevention methods are needed, particularly methods that are within the realm of women's control," Nakadama said.

Security forces in southern Sudan are in desperate need for training and funding to protect civilians against attacks by Ugandan rebels, aid agency World Vision said in a report on Wednesday. Civilians and officials in Western Equatoria state, where Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels had been staying under a Sudanese-brokered truce with the government in Kampala, have blamed the guerrillas for looting, raping, killing and abducting children in the area.

Uganda is one of the ‘highly indebted countries’ that had its debts cancelled after the Gleneagles G8 summit of 2005. It recently stepped up school spending - introducing free secondary education – but the future is looking doubtful, contends Collins Vumiria, for Panos.

Every evening, a line of young girls with yellow jerry cans on their heads and babies on their backs walks to the camp water point on the edge of the forest. They pump water under the protective eye of the young men with guns, and shy away from visitors and outsiders. These are the girls of the Lord’s Resistance Army, at the LRA headquarters on the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border.

The World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) has reduced support for poverty alleviation programmes in Uganda over concerns about the allocation of funds and financial management, the Bank said. The IDA is a section of the Bank that makes interest-free loans to the world’s poorest countries.

Uganda's government has scrapped plans to convert thousands of hectares of rainforest on an island in Lake Victoria into a palm oil plantation, according to the country's environment minister. The announcement on Saturday follows protests, in which three people died, over a similar project by a sugar production company.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday it would resume operations in the drought-affected Karamoja region of northern Uganda following government assurances on the security of staff. The U.N. agency suspended food deliveries to half a million people struggling to cope with the effects of drought after a WFP driver was shot dead on Monday during an ambush by unidentified gunmen in Kotido District

A plan for Uganda to establish a National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Network backbone have hit a wall after Parliament rejected the "high" interest rate on the loan from China. While meeting the Minister of ICT, Dr Ham Muliira and that of Finance Dr Ezra Suruma, the Parliamentary Committee on the National Economy demanded that the government explains the rationale for a 2 per cent interest rate ($2.12 million) to be charged on the $106m for the national ICT backbone project over 20 years.

The Uganda government is taking steps to strategize ICT as a priority sector for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and to fight poverty.
According to the Information and Communications Technology minister Dr. Ham Mukasa Mulira, the first major step was the creation of the ministry. "Previously Uganda's ICT environment did not have focused ownership that takes into account multi sectoral, cross cutting and catalytic nature of ICT," he said.

Uganda ratified the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1986 and is party to a number of other regional and international treaties that outlaw torture and other forms of ill-treatment. Despite this, reports of torture in Uganda continue.

Peace talks between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have raised hopes among people in the country's northern Pader district that their long ordeal may be soon over. Most of the district's population has been displaced by the insurgency. But the security situation has eased since the launch last July of peace negotiations aimed at ending 21 years of civil war – it is safe to travel without armed escort and internally displaced people (IDP) are slowly leaving camps and returning to their places of origin.

On May 17 Uganda joined other countries in commemorating that 142nd anniversary of the International Telecommunications Information Society day held at the Hotel Africana. At the function the acting Permanent Secretary in the Information Communication Technology (MOICT) ministry, Dr. Godfrey Kibuuka announced that the Ugandan government has started laying a 2000sq.km national transmission backbone cable that will be ready for the CHOGM to be held in November.

The security situation in northern Uganda has improved beyond recognition since peace talks to end 20 years of civil war began last July, the new U.N. aid chief has said. John Holmes is on his first visit to the region ravaged by an insurgency that has killed tens of thousands and driven some 1.7 million more into squalid camps.

The signing of an Agreement on Comprehensive Solutions to the Causes of War by the Government of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) on 2 May 2007 in Juba, Sudan, has been hailed as the first step towards a final peace agreement to end more than 20 years of conflict in the nation's North.

HIV-positive Ugandan women are benefiting from a new crop of 'self-help' projects that are enabling them to support themselves and gain a foothold in the country's formal economy through a combination of affordable loans and small business ventures. The members of one such project, Bead for Life create jewellery out of papier-mâché beads, which is sold both locally and in the United States. Previously, many of them had struggled to buy food and pay hospital bills.

Awaaz notes with concern the recent re-emergence of racial conflict in Uganda.

 
It is indeed sad that the South Asian community in Uganda as a whole has paid the price for the recklessness of a few South Asian leaders who have once again collaborated with the ruling class; this time to rape the country of its natural resource and continue the exploitation of the Ugandan people.

It is the story of the South Asians in East Africa since the advent of independence in the territories. These business tycoons are single mindedly determined to make money in collaboration with the ruling elites. In doing so they portray the entire South Asian community as the ‘visible enemy’; and thus undermine the positive roles that ordinary South Asians have played, and are playing, in the colonial and independent histories of the East African countries.
 
It is indeed disappointing that president Museveni considers environmental conservation a ‘luxury’! We in Kenya are grappling with trying to replace our lost environmental resources and are already suffering from the consequences.

Surely Uganda’s South Asian industrialists should understand this global concern. Their complete inability in Uganda to learn from history and chart a new path of national inclusion and reconciliation, instead of exacerbating the myth of exploitation, is shocking, to say the least.

It is reckless and irresponsible for the Mehta Group to attempt to plunder the resources of Uganda in complete violation of the wishes of the Ugandan people and of international environmental standards.

We do applaud the sentiments of the general Ugandan South Asian community in condemning the move by the Mehta group. They need to link up with the rest of the Ugandan community and struggle for a just, democratic and environmentally secure country.
 
Awaaz once again reiterates that it stands for:

-  The need for the South Asian communities in East Africa to get involved politically and cast their lot with the masses of the three countries. As Awaaz has shown, history is replete with examples of individuals who have participated in the political processes in the region. Some notable individuals are:

-   Uganda: Sugra Visram – MP, 1963 - 1966
-   Kenya:  Pio Gama Pinto – socialist, freedom fighter
-   Makhan Singh - founder of the trade union movement
-   Manilal Desai – party organiser and freedom fighter
-   Tanzania:  Sophia Mustafa – MP, 1958 - 1965
-   Amir Jamal – minister of finance
 
The community has to get involved in the day to day political processes be it at parliamentary or civic levels. We in Kenya have once again the opportunity of getting representation in the body politic during the upcoming 2007 election.
 
Finally we stand in solidarity with the Ugandan people and the Ugandan South Asian community as they struggle against dictatorship and political repression. We have to stand up and be counted - history will judge us accordingly!
 
Further reading:
The Daily Nation - p.17, Friday 13 April 2007
The Daily Nation - 'Africa Insight' report: Friday 20 April 2007

Brushing aside concerns from environmentalists and rights groups, the World Bank has said it will support the controversial Bujagali dam in Uganda with US$360,000,000 in loans and guarantees. The decision was quickly denounced by activists, who say the dam poses grave environmental risks and that Bank ignored recent studies in justifying the measure.

Women’s rights activists in Uganda have petitioned the constitutional court demanding that female genital mutilation (FGM), practised by several communities in the east of the country, be declared illegal.

The latest International Crisis Group report examines the ten month old peace process between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government. Both sides have agreed to renew their cessation of hostilities agreement and restart the Juba negotiation that stalled early this year.

The Distance Education and Teacher Training in Africa conference is taking place from 5-8 August 2007 in Kampala, Uganda. Interested educationalists are invited to submit abstracts under a number of streams. The presentations in these parallel sessions will be limited to 15 minutes, with an additional five minutes for questions. Abstracts must reach the organising committee not later than 31 May 2007.