Provide subsidised milk to malnourished children and women
Aug 22, 2023
Kakura says globally, around 45% of deaths among children under the age of 5 years are linked to undernutrition and 80% of the children suffering from acute undermatron can’t access treatment.

Andrew Bakoraho Kakura
Admin .
@New Vision
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By Andrew Bakoraho Kakura
Persistent cases of acute malnutrition reported in some parts of the country not only contradict but also undermine the dairy success story reflected in the latest performance report of Dairy Development Authority (DDA) which indicated that annual milk production increased to 3.4 billion litres from 2.8 billion in 2021.
The huge quantities and related dairy products largely produced in South Western, Mid-Western and Central parts of the country where sub-sectoral growth averages around between 11% and 15%, compared to a national growth of seven percentage, hardly reach mitigate risks associated with underfeeding commonly in other regions like Eastern and North Eastern where thousands of children and young women are facing life-threatening acute undernutrition.
Such developments point to regional economic imbalances driven by inefficiencies underlying in implementation of National Development Plans.
Otherwise, how do we continue to pride in record milk production amidst persistent UN warnings that in Uganda, 26.8% of the children under the age of five (5) years are stunted due to Undernutrition, which is also reported to be responsible for four in 10 deaths of our children?
Like Dairy products, there are several other foods being produced in abundance in Uganda like fish, beans, ground nuts, beef and others which have essential nutrients to avert undernutrition but are hardly accessed in regions where malnutrition has become a life-threatening disease among children and women.
This also explains our low consumption of milk reported at 64 litres per person annually compared to 200 litres recommended by World Health Organisation.
However, such regional economic imbalances and consumption gaps could be exploited positively to widen the market for dairy products and others if the surplus output could be availed to the disadvantaged regions at subsidised affordable prices with the help of the state intervention and its development partners.
This would certainly enhance domestic consumption of dairy products in non-cattle growing areas and also raise productive people capable of delivering productively in future labour markets.
For example, how shall a total of 22,740 children reported in the latest UNICEF report (July 2022) as severely malnourished and in need of urgent treatment in North Eastern region become future productive Ugandan innovators, consumers, taxpayers, labourers, of Uganda without interventions like one am emphasising?
According to the above source, Karamoja and other neighbouring districts are affected by food insecurity, a key driver of the menace disease, the prevalence of acute malnutrition among children in Karamoja is at a serious level of 13.1%, with Moroto and Kabong registering 21.9% and 19.6% respectively.
It is also estimated that child undernutrition costs Uganda an equivalent to a staggering 5.6% of the country’s GDP annually (UNICEF 2019).
Five Refugees Settlements in Uganda, according to International Rescue Committee, have been found with the most life-threatening form of malnutrition which rose nearly by 50% in 2022.
Globally, around 45% of deaths among children under the age of 5 years are linked to undernutrition and 80% of the children suffering from acute undermatron can’t access treatment.
Arguably, productive government institutions like Diary Development Authority (DDA & NDP) won’t enjoy the hard-earned success, nor will it truly deliver on her mandate of ensuring sustainable economic development through improved nutritional standards in Uganda and realise her statutory vision of improved health, wealth and prosperity of Ugandans when so many Ugandan children continue to starve and die due to lack foods being produced in plenty in a subsector under its supervision and management.
To reverse the status quo, government through relevant Ministry Departments, and Agencies, must embark on seeking sound partnerships with traditional development donors and allies such as UNEPI, FAO, UNICEF, WFP UNHCR, IRC, AU, CNOOC, not only to fundraise for treatment the malnourished but also sponsor milk consumption at subsidized prices in disease worst-hit areas, in a nursery and primary schools.
Providing the daily recommended 200ml of packed milk at Ugx800 to an estimated9million pupils in primary schools (2018 Min of Sports & Education) who roughly spend 198 days (three terms of 66days each) at school in a year would require each pupil to spend sh158,000 to consume 39,600 ml (40 litres) annually.
Budgeting for 9m pupils would therefore create a market of 360 million litres of milk, generating close to sh1.425 Trillion for stakeholders.
Such a campaign should also address the plight of children outside school and more especially ones from poor households in all regions of Uganda.
With intensified public awareness raising, guaranteed financial support from the mentioned key sector stakeholders to enableprovision of milk at subsidised prices, and incentives to smallholder farms to ensure sustainable supply, malnutrition would be history and Ugandan milk traders would forget unnecessary phycological torture at Kenyan borders.
The writer is a researcher and an advocate for equitable and progressive policies.
bakoraho@yahoo.co.uk