Money alone won’t prevent hunger!
May 16, 2007
SIR — On May 13, hundreds of people walked the ‘fight hunger 2007’ walk, with President Yoweri Museveni as the chief walker. However, we should not be surprised that many people who religiously walked till the end, returned home only to be welcomed by the hunger they left there!
SIR — On May 13, hundreds of people walked the ‘fight hunger 2007’ walk, with President Yoweri Museveni as the chief walker. However, we should not be surprised that many people who religiously walked till the end, returned home only to be welcomed by the hunger they left there!
Many people made pledges with the Uganda Government taking centre stage with a sh100m contribution and Museveni personally contributing sh10m towards the World Food Programme’s target of fighting hunger among children by 2015. Not a bad amount of money but is that what it takes to end hunger? Perhaps, not.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has certainly done a god job of distributing food to the needy communities over the years, but do they ever ask themselves why hunger has never ended? Does the WFP really have to be operating in Uganda, a country blessed with fertile soils and superb weather? Food distribution would be understandable in places like Somalia or Iraq where people really never have an opportunity to cultivate as a result of the bombs shelling their villages, but not Uganda!
I was very upset recently when a child died in Bushenyi district and the reason was said to be hunger. Bushenyi is one of the leading food-producing districts in Uganda. How can anyone in such a district die of hunger?
The reason why hunger has persisted in Uganda particularly is because of greed and selfishness. A number of people have more food than they need. many people have large chunks of land lying idle for as long as 10 years. many leaders charged with the duty of assisting the poor come but end up diverting the money to their own pockets.
That is the cause of hunger. unless there is a serious change of heart among Ugandans, long beyond 2015, hunger will still be around with us. As President Museveni rightly said, the problem in Uganda is not lack of food, but rather that resources are poorly distributed.
Rather than Museveni joining the lamentations about hunger, in his authority, he ought to have announced that every Ugandan shall be entitled to a quarter an acre of their God-given land. Yes, much as we are all born equal, society has dictated that some people are actually more equal than others!
The government must find deliberate ways of redistributing resources from the rich to the poor as a way of fighting hunger. Here ‘resources’ does not mean physical food, but rather empowering the ordinary man to gain the capacity to establish a chain of self-sustenance down to his great grandchildren. God gave us this world when it was big enough to accommodate us all.
The water, the weather, the land, the trees, the sun, the mountains—without need for any scientific research. all these natural gifts are enough for every Ugandan to live on. But without proper distribution of the land resource, hunger will continue to bite.
Let all Ugandans forget their personal aggrandisement, look at each one as a brother or sister and share the resources at hand in a good Christian spirit to ensure that we put a full stop on hunger in our country. Where it necessitates dictating, President Museveni should not compromise because here we are talking of a question of life and death. How shameful that anyone should die of hunger in Uganda!
Deo T. Kabwende
Kampala
Many people made pledges with the Uganda Government taking centre stage with a sh100m contribution and Museveni personally contributing sh10m towards the World Food Programme’s target of fighting hunger among children by 2015. Not a bad amount of money but is that what it takes to end hunger? Perhaps, not.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has certainly done a god job of distributing food to the needy communities over the years, but do they ever ask themselves why hunger has never ended? Does the WFP really have to be operating in Uganda, a country blessed with fertile soils and superb weather? Food distribution would be understandable in places like Somalia or Iraq where people really never have an opportunity to cultivate as a result of the bombs shelling their villages, but not Uganda!
I was very upset recently when a child died in Bushenyi district and the reason was said to be hunger. Bushenyi is one of the leading food-producing districts in Uganda. How can anyone in such a district die of hunger?
The reason why hunger has persisted in Uganda particularly is because of greed and selfishness. A number of people have more food than they need. many people have large chunks of land lying idle for as long as 10 years. many leaders charged with the duty of assisting the poor come but end up diverting the money to their own pockets.
That is the cause of hunger. unless there is a serious change of heart among Ugandans, long beyond 2015, hunger will still be around with us. As President Museveni rightly said, the problem in Uganda is not lack of food, but rather that resources are poorly distributed.
Rather than Museveni joining the lamentations about hunger, in his authority, he ought to have announced that every Ugandan shall be entitled to a quarter an acre of their God-given land. Yes, much as we are all born equal, society has dictated that some people are actually more equal than others!
The government must find deliberate ways of redistributing resources from the rich to the poor as a way of fighting hunger. Here ‘resources’ does not mean physical food, but rather empowering the ordinary man to gain the capacity to establish a chain of self-sustenance down to his great grandchildren. God gave us this world when it was big enough to accommodate us all.
The water, the weather, the land, the trees, the sun, the mountains—without need for any scientific research. all these natural gifts are enough for every Ugandan to live on. But without proper distribution of the land resource, hunger will continue to bite.
Let all Ugandans forget their personal aggrandisement, look at each one as a brother or sister and share the resources at hand in a good Christian spirit to ensure that we put a full stop on hunger in our country. Where it necessitates dictating, President Museveni should not compromise because here we are talking of a question of life and death. How shameful that anyone should die of hunger in Uganda!
Deo T. Kabwende
Kampala