Ending hunger requires investment in systems that help families feed themselves

By Sam Tukei 

Today, the world commemorates World Hunger Day to raise awareness and inspire action to end hunger.

Yet the disconcerting reality that millions still go to bed hungry compels us to ask a harder question: why does hunger persist on a continent endowed with fertile land, hardworking farmers, energetic youth, and communities determined to thrive?

For Uganda, this conversation is especially urgent. While the country has strong agricultural potential, food insecurity persists because many households continue to face structural barriers that limit resilience, productivity, market access and income stability.

These barriers include recurring weather shocks, gaps in market systems, limited access to productive assets and finance, post-harvest losses, price fluctuations, and constraints in last-mile service delivery.

The pressure is even greater in refugee-hosting districts. Uganda hosts one of the largest refugee populations in Africa, with over 1.95 million refugees and asylum-seekers.

For many refugees and host-community families, the challenge is no longer only about meeting today’s food needs, but about rebuilding livelihoods and securing a more stable path towards resilience and self-reliance.

Declining humanitarian food assistance is colliding with rising need, as families, both refugees and host communities, attempt to rebuild their lives under increasingly constrained conditions.

In such a context, hunger cannot be addressed through food distribution alone. Emergency assistance saves lives, but it is not, and cannot be, a long-term solution.

Lasting progress requires a stronger bridge between relief, recovery, and development. It demands a deliberate shift from responding to hunger today to prevent it for tomorrow.

Uganda’s policy commitments, on agricultural transformation, nutrition, and refugee integration, already point in this direction.

The challenge now is to align investments and implementation with these ambitions, particularly in regions under the greatest strain.

Our experience as ForAfrika from northern Uganda, especially West Nile, underscores a central lesson: food security is inseparable from the strength of local systems.

Where agricultural production is low, inputs are inaccessible, and markets are weak or distant; hunger takes root quickly. Supporting farmers, therefore, is not simply about increasing yields; it is about strengthening the entire value chain.

In practice, this includes improving access to quality seed and extension services, strengthening farmer organisations, investing in post-harvest handling, and building reliable market linkages.

When farmers can produce and sell at fair prices, the effects ripple outward: household incomes rise, diets improve, and resilience grows.

Crucially, farmers do not become self-sufficient in isolation. Across parts of northern Uganda, linking farmer groups to cooperatives and traders, alongside partnerships with commercial banks, has shown how access to finance and structured markets can unlock productivity.

In some cases, farmer groups and cooperatives have been supported through smart subsidies to access mechanisation such as tractors, ploughs, and planters. This reinforces an important principle: food security is linked to production, production is linked to markets, and markets are linked to income.

Youth inclusion is another critical piece of the puzzle. Uganda’s youthful population is a tremendous asset, yet many young people lack access to skills, capital, and opportunities.

When excluded, households become more vulnerable to hunger. But when young people are supported to engage in enterprises, from agribusiness to manufacturing and services, they become drivers of resilience.

In West Nile, for example, youth-led enterprise models are beginning to demonstrate this shift.

The Self-Driven Poultry Group, a poultry initiative ForAfrika supported through a smart subsidy approach, combining community contribution with external support, has enabled groups to build viable businesses.

One such group has expanded its operations, creating jobs and multiple income streams. This is what resilience looks like in practice: a single intervention laying out the foundation for broader economic opportunity.

At the same time, agriculture and income alone cannot solve hunger. Malnutrition is closely tied to health, water, and sanitation. A child who eats but is repeatedly exposed to unsafe water or poor hygiene remains at high risk.

A mother without access to nutrition services may struggle during critical stages of child development.

This is why integrated approaches are essential. Safe water, sanitation, hygiene, and access to health and nutrition services must be understood as central to food security—not as parallel efforts.

When these systems work together, households are healthier, more productive, and better able to sustain themselves.

The same principle applies to education. Well-designed school feeding programmes reduce hunger, improve attendance and learning outcomes while creating stable demand for local agricultural production. When local farmers supply schools, a virtuous cycle emerges, strengthening nutrition, education, and livelihoods simultaneously.

If Uganda is to make meaningful progress in reducing hunger, three priorities stand out.
First, scale up investment in local food systems.

This includes inputs, irrigation, extension services, storage, and functioning markets. Reducing post-harvest losses, often overlooked, can be as impactful as increasing production.

Second, place nutrition at the centre of food security strategies. A full plate is not enough if it lacks diversity. Nutrition-sensitive agriculture, maternal and child health services, clean water, and sanitation must be fully integrated.

Third, strengthen local systems. Community groups, cooperatives, savings associations, youth enterprises, and district institutions are the foundation of sustainable change.

When they are equipped and empowered, they continue delivering long after external support fades.

World Hunger Day should push us toward practical choices. Uganda has the knowledge, human capital, and natural resources to feed its people. What remains is the task of strengthening the systems that allow that potential to flourish.

Across the country, there is resilience, entrepreneurship, and determination. What is often missing is not effort, but alignment of policies, resources, markets, and long-term investment.

Ending hunger is possible. But we must accelerate the shift from managing crises to building systems that make hunger less likely, and eventually, unnecessary.

Sam Tukei is the Country Director at ForAfrika Uganda and Co-Chair of the INGO Country Directors’ Network in Uganda