Politics

LET US NOT COMPARE OURSELVES TO H.E Y.K MUSEVENI

I wish to comment on on your Opinions which is on the website of Public Opinions tittled "All Ugandans have contributed!I". I would like Dr. Mutumba to know that the President has been appraised by the people of Uganda, three times!.

Karooro is giving her appraisal of the President as a person. In 2011, if NRM decides to front Mr. Museveni again, the people will again have another chance to appraise his performance.

Dr. Mutumba should also be aware that in this world, there are people who play roles that are more significant than others! There are people whose actions can significantly affect the lives of a significant number of people! Such people because of their position in society are not judged by the same standards as some of us!.

Yes, I have had lots of input in the Uganda we now have but my actions or inactions, commissions or omissions only affect a small group of people (probably family and friends)!The acts of commission or omission of Museveni have had far reaching impact on the lives of numerous Ugandans!.

That is why Dr. Mutumba cannot rate his contribution on the same level as that of Museveni! That is why, people can attribute the turning around of Uganda to Museveni and not to me, although I have played a role!.

There is a CEO who was shown on television and was being praised for having turned around the fortunes of Mitsubishi! I am sure there are many engineers in Mitsubishi, but why did this interview attribute the success of Mitsibishi to this CEO?God Bless Uganda.

Rogers Mataka

Politics

All Ugandans have contributed!
By Dr Mutumba John

I wish to comment on Mary karooro Okurut’s article, “Museveni deserves another ‘kisanja’” published on Tuesday. Karooro’s article was on President Museven’s second year in office since the amendment of the constitution scrapping presidential term limits. Her article raises fundamental questions about our mentality as Africans and more particularly as Ugandans.

It also reminds me of my days in high school at St. Mary’s College Kisubi and Kololo SS. Karooro states that the best reward for a job well done is the opportunity to do it again. she goes on to assert that the people of Uganda have given President Museven another five years in power because of his service thus far. Personally, I am not against another kisanja for President Museveni nor do I disagree with the numerous achievements Karooro outlined.

What I disagree with is what she seems to insinuate that it is the people of Uganda who have appraised the President and have collectively come to the conclusion that he should be given another five years in office. Can Karooro tell us the appraisal method?

Under what terms of reference was she appraising the President? Are the achievements she is talking about attributable to one person or the Government of the Republic of Uganda? Surely, is it true that we Ugandans have played no part in taking our country where it is now? Were all these accomplishments done by ‘the son of Kaguta’ alone or the NRM Government and the men who fought in Luwero?.

At least I know I have, in one way or another, contributed to Uganda’s achievements. When I went to Kisubi, I realised that I was contending with the cream of Uganda. At Kololo I was always first or second but at Kisubi I was 15th in a class of 24 in the first term! In conclusion, one will never know his or her potential unless tested along the best in the country, with genuine competition, when the appraiser is independent.

Fortunately, we don’t have to appraise our President through the tummy. we will have the opportunity to use our brains at the ballot box. at least that is what our constitution says.

Dr. John Mutumba is a Ugandan living in London United Kingdom

IMF/WORLD BANK

IMF/WORLD BANK ECONOMICS HAVE FAILED THE. DEVELOPING WORLD

By Henry Zakumumpa

It is now widely acknowledged in economic circles that IMF/World bank development economics have largely failed the developing world. Why their models for economic growth still influence economic thought and policy in developing countries especially such as Uganda remains a puzzle.

In his 2001 book, The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics, William Easterly, himself an ex-World Bank economist of long standing, presents a body of evidence that illustrates the failure of the World Bank and IMF economic prescriptions for developing economies in the past fifty years.

It is shown for example that between the second world war and 1995, the west has invested a trillion dollars in developing countries with nothing much to show for it. The belief by the World Bank and IMF that foreign aid, investment in education and technology, population growth control, loans pegged to reform conditions and debt relief were the panacea for growth is a model that has not delivered results.

In some cases countries which have religiously embraced the Breton woods economic policies have actually become poorer with many stagnating. Easterly’s research shows that between 1980 to 1994 (a fifteen year-period) twelve countries including Uganda received fifteen or more World Bank and IMF adjustment loans. The median per capita growth rate for these twelve countries over the loan period was zero!

More recently, renowned economist Jeffery Sachs in his 2005 best seller, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities of our time, recounts his work in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, Zimbabwe and Kenya where he has been directly involved as economic adviser on economic policy. He presents evidence form the field, amassed over a twenty year period, that is highly critical of the one-model-fits-all approach the IMF and World Bank propose to all countries seeking their loans and patronage and calls for more innovative and holistic approaches.

He proposes a fascinating approach he calls ‘clinical economics’. The basic argument is that economies are complex systems and require a’ differential diagnosis’ much in a way a Physician would probe an entire person’s body to pin point the cause of an illness and therefore the remedy.

As far back as 1982, Margaret Hardiman in her book, The Social Dimensions of Development observed that most economic growth approaches for the developing world are erroneously modeled on western countries without due regard to the peculiar background and the complexity of developing economies. You will find that the PhDs that populate World Bank and IMF offices and dictate economic policy in the third world are mostly from western universities with limited practical understanding of the developing world terrain.

It’s deeply surprising and even scandalous, that African economic authorities and even academics are still intellectually inclined to the World Bank/IMF growth template despite evidence that their model has largely not worked. Often its foreign protesters in western capitals at Seattle or Davos who call for the abandonment of the growth strategies preached by the IMF and world bank altogether when African leaders and economists sit back.

It is common to hear government officials continue to tout IMF/World bank development economics despite available evidence that these approaches haven’t had many true success stories. Many economists, with the benefit of hindsight, have acknowledged this much with many discrediting IMF/world bank prescriptions. Despite the wide consensus among economists that World Bank/ IMF strategies are flawed there is no concrete indication on the part of the developing world of the need for a paradigm shift or a new prototype. The basic truth is that not all economic problems facing countries are the same and one model can’t be the answer.

The finance ministry in Uganda should therefore endeavour to think outside the box and call for a debate on the need for new economic approaches. As has been observed, the only thing more dangerous than an economist is an amateur economist.

The writer is an Assistant Registrar at Makerere University

Peace and Security

Ugandan Yoweri Museveni, Not the Usual Black African in dealing with the Arabs

By Steve Paterno

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda is arguably among the very few from the African leaders who are able to deal squarely with the Arabs, especially those Arabs in Khartoum , Sudan . Museveni places the Arab manufactured war in Sudan into its proper context. He seems to understand the potential consequences of that war to the entire region better than most regional leaders.

In addressing the issue of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan rebel group which is long been supported from Sudan, Museveni explains in a clear tone of voice that for the last two decades since the Uganda government is fighting with the rebel, it is in fact “fighting with the Khartoum government.” He goes on to warn the Arab regime in Khartoum that the regime has just recently “discovered that we were not the usual Black Africans. If you create problems for us we create more problems for you.”

The Arabs’ march from Arabian Peninsular with the intention of conquering not just Africa but the entire world started in the 7th century. Matter of fact, the conquering Arabs did not just march but sprinted fast through the desert and in the process, plundering, killing, converting, enslaving, conquering and eventually ruling whoever is on the way. All the areas under their sphere of control including the Sudan are placed under Arab Islamic rule.

Strategically enough, the Sudan has become springboard for the Arabs to spread their project of Arabization and Islamization south of equator and proceed all the way deep into Southern Africa . However, for centuries, the people of South Sudan put a hold on their advancement by strongly resisting against it. For centuries, the people of South Sudan keeps reminding the African south of equator that the people of South Sudan are fighting the war of all those Africans south of equator, and for centuries, the people of South Sudan are soliciting the support of the African south of equator to help in the resistance against the advancement of Arabs southward.

In their part, the Arabs use all available options at their disposal to press with their agendas of Arabization and Islamization and forcefully move south across the equator. One of such options is that the Arabs use the Africans to do the work for them. They install and sponsor puppet African leaders to speak or act on behalf of the Arabs. They create several armed groups. In South Sudan those armed groups are infamously referred to as militias. Some of the groups, the foreign ones, become rebels or terrorists, causing havoc throughout the region. Among the foreign groups at disposal of the Arabs of Khartoum’s is the brutal LRA of Uganda.

The case of LRA is just among the most interesting ones, given the twist it has recently taken. For some obvious reasons, the officials at the government of South Sudan (GOSS), inherited and adopted the LRA and all its problems.

Just at a critical moment at LRA’s history when the LRA is pushed outside Uganda; its sanctuaries in the South Sudan were denied; its logistic from Khartoum was cut off; and the whole international community was about to pound on its members with all means possible including legal; then the misguided officials of the newly created GOSS, invited the LRA to stay. A poorly contemplated peace talks was proposed and organized.

The LRA, are then supplied with cash money, food, and other necessary logistics just as Khartoum used to do. Specially designated areas are demarcated to the LRA combatants as their newly found sanctuaries. In short, the GOSS, which is representing the people of South Sudan, becomes the host of the LRA just as Khartoum was the host of LRA. And the LRA takes advantage of the situation to inflict even more harms to the suffering population of South Sudan, spread beyond their area of control, and resurge in numbers and recruitments—posing more threats than ever before in its history.

Such a twist of events will leave many to wonder. Nevertheless, it is becoming more obvious that President Museveni is the only lone voice and fighter against the Arabs of Khartoum and those who act on their behalf. The GOSS, which Museveni came to its rescue, seems to have abandoned him already in this fight.

However, there is still hope for the suffering people of South Sudan that Museveni still stands with them. Museveni made that point clear when he sympathetically states, “nevertheless, the government of Uganda and her people are standing firm with the people of Southern Sudan who suffered so much from LRA atrocities and we the government of Uganda have the means to solve some of these problems posed by the LRA.” One will guess, it will not be too much for the suffering people of South Sudan to ask for the help of their neighbor, Uganda , “to solve some of these problems posed by the LRA” and partly cause by their government, the GOSS. Since their government, the GOSS or is it the Ghost, fails them, Museveni, hear the request of the suffering people of South Sudan for you are “not the usual Black African!”

*Steve Paterno is the author of The Rev. Fr. Saturnino Lohure: A Roman Catholic Priest Turned Rebe

Climate

How Prepared are we for Climate Change

By Mugyenyi Cyril

Believe it or don’t humanity will live in a progressively warmer world never known to our great grandfathers. No matter who is responsible, every living creature will pay the price. We are sure that the industrialized world that has produced millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is the major culprit.

They are so reluctant to tackle the problem, even when the poor world is willing to cooperate by planting trees to clean their dirt. This industrialization has enabled them to tame nature to their advantage and can adequately adapt to a variety of life threatening challenges including global warming. The developing world including Uganda where the poorest of the poor live has to pay a bigger bill of the debt of global warming as they lack coping strategies.

When man evolved a bigger and advanced brain he conquered the rest of biosphere. Those animals that remained with an inferior brain had to succumb to his wild wishes. Similarly, those human societies who will fail to adapt to climate change, nature will harshly order them to hand over what they have inherited to those who are ready to use the recent instruments of capitalism to survive.

In the evolutionary course, organisms that failed to adapt to changing environment were driven to extinction, needless to mention the giant dinosaurs that once ruled planet earth and the giant trees of the Carboniferous times. It is now crystal clear that organisms that will not adapt to climate change will gradually die out though it is not clear how this death sentence will be executed by Mother Nature. It is also known that predation and disease are some of the major instruments she uses for enforcing the jungle law of survival for the fittest.

Banana bacterial wilt, Coffee wilt diseases are on rampage wiping out plantations, driving most farmers to extreme poverty. It is possible that this is one form of slow but sure and gradual death of organisms. Similar gradual death may be in progress in other populations that may not have been of interest to us at the moment. These are likely to have been initiated by increasing global average temperatures.

The tourism base of this country will be hard hit as giant tourist attractions like elephants, gorillas and the like will demise as they are not likely to adapt to a warmer world. Crocodiles that are the only surviving cousins of dinosaurs will not escape the gradual temperature increase.

Uganda entirely depends on rain fed agriculture. What will happen when rainfall patterns change towards a drier world, are we prepared for this? Where shall we get relief food in a food-scarce world? Water is indeed becoming scarce and it will continue to be, are we ready to connect rural communities to bigger water bodies for sustainable water supply? Have we developed crops that will withstand the hot temperatures and saline soils?

Our preparedness seems to be so remote if all is exists. If we cannot prepare to adapt to climate change then we should prepare for our gradual extinction to allow the sinners to enjoy the fruit of their sin.

The Writter is the District Head of Natural Resources, Bushenyi District Local Government

Economy/Finance

Economy/Finance

H.E the President, you are wrong on rising Food Prices
By James Okot

Sir, you missed a point for you to passionately state that the rising food prices is a blessing for the country yet millions and millions of Ugandans cannot afford the basics. You should by now be knowing that the biggest percentage of Ugandans survive on less than a dollar a day, now how do you expect them to afford the basics when prices are skyrocketing day and night.

For the food prices to go high cannot be good to Ugandans whatsoever. For the Head of state to specifically point out food prices and living out other items whose prices have doubled in the few months, is a big disappointment to the people of Uganda and indeed, he owes us an apology.

First the prices to go high does not mean improved business performance neither does it mean economic growth in anyway, this instead portrays a state of rising inflation which is dangerous to us economically hence it will cause social and political disorder.

Though prices of almost everything is going up, salaries in public sector is still static, the private sector to date pays peanuts to the employees, how then Mr. President do you expect those low salary earners to survive in this banana nation. The so called investors too have instead exploited the workers, you remember what happened to the tri-stars girls, where are they now. Additionally unemployment is too high coupled with lack of National employment policy hence making workers vulnerable to exploitation.

Its not true however that the NRM government is responsible for the rising prices of commodities, but this largely can be resulting from the widening market base from our neighbors i.e. southern Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, DRC,but the NRM government must do something to avert the likely catastrophe.

How can prices of food items go high imagine in the agricultural economy? Majority of the population are agriculturists, but now why is there food shortage? Who is responsible? .is it the NRM regime or the people?.

Long Live Uganda.

The Writer is a Public Monitor at Public Opinions

Finance and Economy

H.E the President, you are wrong on rising Food Prices

By James Okot

Sir, you missed a point for you to passionately state that the rising food prices is a blessing for the country yet millions and millions of Ugandans cannot afford the basics. You should by now be knowing that the biggest percentage of Ugandans survive on less than a dollar a day, now how do you expect them to afford the basics when prices are skyrocketing day and night.

For the food prices to go high cannot be good to Ugandans whatsoever. For the Head of state to specifically point out food prices and living out other items whose prices have doubled in the few months, is a big disappointment to the people of Uganda and indeed, he owes us an apology.

First the prices to go high does not mean improved business performance neither does it mean economic growth in anyway, this instead portrays a state of rising inflation which is dangerous to us economically hence it will cause social and political disorder.

Though prices of almost everything is going up, salaries in public sector is still static, the private sector to date pays peanuts to the employees, how then Mr. President do you expect those low salary earners to survive in this banana nation. The so called investors too have instead exploited the workers, you remember what happened to the tri-stars girls, where are they now. Additionally unemployment is too high coupled with lack of National employment policy hence making workers vulnerable to exploitation.

Its not true however that the NRM government is responsible for the rising prices of commodities, but this largely can be resulting from the widening market base from our neighbors i.e. southern Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, DRC,but the NRM government must do something to avert the likely catastrophe.

How can prices of food items go high imagine in the agricultural economy? Majority of the population are agriculturists, but now why is there food shortage? Who is responsible? .is it the NRM regime or the people?.

Long Live Uganda

The Writer is a Public Monitor at Public Opinions

Refugees

Challenges for asylum seekers
By Antonio Guterres

The 21st century will be defined by the movement of people from one country and continent to another. The number living outside their homeland already stands at some 200 million, the same as the population of Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world.

Looking to the future, it seems certain that the world will witness new and more complex patterns of displacement and migration. Climate change and natural disasters will make life increasingly unsustainable in many parts of the planet.

The growing gap between the winners and losers in the globalisation process will induce millions more to look for a future outside their own country. These developments have created a number of important challenges for the international community. The first challenge arises from the increasingly complex nature of human mobility.

The majority of people on the move are migrants who leave their own country because they are unable to maintain their livelihoods at home and because their labour is needed elsewhere. Others are forced to abandon their homes due to persecution and armed conflict. These people are considered as refugees. They have been granted specific rights, including protection from being forced to return to their own country.

The responsibility of UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, is to uphold the rights of this latter group. In many parts of the world, however, refugees and migrants are to be found travelling alongside each other, heading in the same direction, using the same forms of transport and lacking the passports and visas that states require them to carry.

Such ‘irregular’ movements have prompted many states to erect new barriers to the admission of foreign nationals. Regrettably, these measures have had the effect of preventing refugees from seeking the safety they need. We must therefore ensure that border controls enable people to exercise their right to seek and enjoy asylum in other states.

A second challenge, and one which falls beyond the mandate of UNHCR, is to provide more opportunities for people to move in a safe and legal manner. Most states have now recognised the need for goods, services, capital and information to flow freely across national borders. But governments are apprehensive about applying the same principle to the movement of people, even if they have an evident need for migrant labour.

The result has been a massive growth in the expansion of an industry whose purpose and profit lies in smuggling and trafficking people across international frontiers.

As well as cracking down on such activities, states should consider opening new channels and expanding existing programmes of legal migration.

Greater efforts are therefore needed to prevent the emergence of situations where people are forced to leave their homes as a result of human rights abuses, armed conflict or other calamities that their disrupt lives and livelihoods.

The writer is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to Uganda

Homosexuality

Govt must tighten screws on gays, lesbians
By Hon Mayanja Nkangi

Uganda is experiencing an internationally orchestrated Crescendo of demands for “rights” by the homosexual fraternity: male, lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Transvestite.

Essentially these “rights” reduce to only one, namely, the absolute, non-negotiable, “right” to pursue and enjoy sexual pleasure man with man, woman with woman; with the bisexual exploiting the pleasures of both worlds, and the transgender covetting and securing the sexual pleasures which both God and his or her heterosexual parents never gave him or her.

The Transvestite is apparently ambivalent as to which sexual genus to firmly pursue, but fits himself or herself somehow. Thus this alleged right is pure sexual hedonism or the relentless pursuit of sexual pleasure for its own sake.

The gay claim to legitimise same sex unions or marriages is purely ancillary to the sexual pleasures and is merely an insurance or security for accessing and enjoying same sex sexual pleasures.
What is implicit here is a claim to the ‘right to sex’, and this should be readily conceded as a human right which is universally accepted by humanity.

However, the mode of sexual activity is itself a societal, rather than a human right and can only be sanctioned by the community in accordance with the moral cultural, religious, or legal norms of that particular community. Sodomy and lesbianism are modes or kinds of sex and are therefore subject to societal regulation by sanction or prohibition, in conformity with a community’s interests.

Astonishingly, the Ugandan gays and lesbians are claiming their sexual orientations as a ‘human right’ and are seeking to coerce Ugandans into stamping the national seal of approval on these weird practices. But for the majority of Ugandans this demand is uncompromisingly unacceptable. They could suffer the moral and cultural outrage silently, but asking them to applaud the sexual deviations goes against the grain. A right being an entitlement to own, possess, do or say something, or else, forbear, the homosexual fraternity maintain that they are entitled to sodomise natural men, and the lesbians to adopt masculine sexual postrues (whatever they do).

And their rationale for this? “Well, that is what we want and how we want it!” Wanting something is not a sufficient reason for a community or state to sanction it. The next demand could then be the decriminalisation of bestiality (sex with animals) or the laws against adultery or incest. The demand for homosexuality and lesbianism, and their related activities, must be firmly resisted on the ground that these practices violate the cultural, religious, moral, and legal norms of the country.

These people, being themselves the products or children of heterosexual unions, nevertheless pursue practices which rule out procreation, except for the bisexual. They are thus a sexually predatory group of citizens who pursue sexual pleasure without any social or moral conscience for the continuance and survival of Ugandans as a people.

Like the former King Louis XIV of France, their attitudes to this eventual weakening of the nation is “après nous le deluge!”: That is, after I have gone the catastrophe will come, but it will not affect me. The probability that the heterosexual Ugandans will always be there to replenish the country’s numbers does not absolve the homosexuals.

A citizen’s responsibility for the national interest cannot be shifted. Homosexuals, lesbians, and their cohorts are, in this respect, avowed libertines without regard for the national or public interest.
In any case heterosexual progeny or none, she would be a short sighted woman who raised chicken but allowed her neighbour to habitually steal the eggs! As presented by its crusaders the right, if it is one, to same-sex sexual relations and unions is self-evident and calls for no debate but only for recognition by everyone, especially the country’s government and Parliament, who must act and legitimise same sex marriages.

Homosexuality, lesbianism, and the like, are a morally corrupting influence on the youth. In other words, the national accounts of the homosexual fraternity are heavily overdrawn. Therefore the government and Parliament must maintain the legal screws on these unnatural habits which their possessors glorify as respectable orientations.

Uganda must not recognise, sanction, protect or promote sodomy or lesbianism by legislation or otherwise. And gay and lesbian practices are ill winds which blow nobody any good; not even themselves, if only they knew.

he practices are not rights as such but raw sexual appetites whose adverse effects on the Ugandan community must be erased lock, stock, and barrel.

The writer is former minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs-Republic of Uganda

Population

Advocates of high population growth; your brains must have gone on leave
By Dr Chris Baryomunsi

There have been arguments about population growth in Uganda with some questioning whether the country is under-populated. Today, Uganda is experiencing the highest population growth rate ever at 3.6% per annum, probably the highest rate in the world. Uganda's population estimated at 29.2 million makes her the 38th most populated country in the world.

A Ugandan woman’s fertility rate is 6.7 children, the third highest in the world. The question is not the population size but the rate at which it is growing. For a country like Uganda, still in the early stages of demographic transition, it is dangerous to urge the population to produce children without cautious consideration of the implications. Some people have falsely argued that countries like Japan, with a population of 130 million, China (1.32 billion) and India (1.16 billion) have made economic strides because of their huge populations.

There is strong evidence that these countries initiated robust economic reforms but backed by strong population and family planning policies. Japan, for instance, initiated one of the strongest family planning programmes after the World War II, which resulted in lowering of the total fertility rate now at 1.2 children per woman. China initiated economic reforms in 1978 and also initiated a strong, though repressive, one child policy in 1979 that still holds to date.

These countries' main concern is the quality of their population and not merely the numbers.If correct that the larger the population of a country the wealthier, then Uganda would be the 38th richest nation in the world. It would be richer than the following countries with their indicated populations; Belgium 10.4m, Sweden 9.1m, Denmark 5.4m and Norway 4.7m.

These countries, on the contrary, are donors supporting Uganda. One would further ask why Botswana has one of the highest GDP south of the Sahara yet its population is only 1.8 million! Or how come that Nigeria with its 135 million people, the world’s ninth most populous country and Ethiopia (75 million), the 16th most populous are not among the top rich countries? The dangers of advocating a rapid population growth are obvious both at aggregate and individual levels.

If the population grows unchecked, we shall end up with a mass of poor, low quality people that in themselves become a burden to the government. Indeed in Uganda, most of the achievements gained in economic growth and service provision continue to be undermined by the high and increasing population growth. For instance, though poverty levels have been declining, the increasing population masks this achievement.

The absolute numbers of people in dire poverty continue to rise and this makes it hard to realise any tangible changes in poverty reduction. The prevailing land wrangles, scarcity of drugs in health centres, the poor quality of school education as well as high levels of unemployment are partly due to the population pressure. Over 50% of the Ugandan population is aged below 15 and this poses development, social and political challenges, which must be addressed.At an individual level, the burden of bearing many children is mainly borne by a woman.

Telling her to produce many children is another way of asking her to dig her own grave. In Uganda we lose more than 6000 mothers annually due to maternal deaths meaning 16 mothers everyday. They die because they conceive while young, often get unwanted pregnancies and poorly spaced. The disturbing irony is that some of the elite that advocate many children produce few. They should remember that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander.In Uganda, the population will continue to increase for some time.

However, it is extremely crucial to ensure that we check our population growth. The percentage of eligible women using family planning has remained at 23% over the last decade.

And yet the unmet need for family planning has over the same period increased from 29% to 41%. This means there are many women who would like to stop or space childbearing but are not accessing contraceptives. This definitely calls for urgent action. It is instructive that Uganda must take action on her population growth.

It is this action that will guarantee success of the many progressive policies like universal education and prosperity for all. Ugandans particularly women should not produce children by chance but by choice. And they should neither produce them too early or too late nor should they be too many and too frequently. Over to you Ugandans.

The writer is the Chairman, Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Food Security, Population and Development, and Member of Parliament for Kinkizi East Constituency

Family and Health

Women and girls need an Aids vaccine
By Janet Museveni

Five months ago here in Kampala, delegations from 32 countries gathered for the Eighth Commonwealth Women’s Affairs Ministers Meeting. “Gender inequalities lie at the heart of the HIV epidemic,” states the communiqué from that gathering. It calls for a truly comprehensive approach to HIV/Aids- not only scaling up treatment and care services, but also, and with equal urgency, investing in existing prevention techniques and newer and better technologies, such as microbicides and vaccines.

Two and half decades since the onset of the HIV/Aids epidemic, gender inequality remains one of the principal drivers of HIV. In 1998, women accounted for 41 percent of HIV-infected adults worldwide. By 2005, women made up almost 50 percent, and nearly 60 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.

The gender imbalance in sub-Saharan Africa is even more striking among young people: a woman between the ages of 15 and 24 is two and a half times more likely to be infected than her male peer. We must ask ourselves: Why are women at a higher risk of infection than men? What must we do to address this challenge and curb the epidemic? In this country, we have been using a strategy called ABC, which simply means Abstinence, Being Faithful, and Condom Use.

Early on, the A and B were given limited attention. We believe, however, that our advocacy efforts, which include multimedia campaigns all over the country, have contributed to the greatest decline in prevalence in those aged 15 to 20, due in large part to delayed sexual debut among young people. The evidence of the impact of ABC supports the current wisdom that the ABC approach should be put forward as a package: abstain or delay sexual debut for those who are not yet sexually active, seek voluntary counselling and testing with a potential sexual partner, and remain faithful or use condoms correctly and consistently.Although Uganda has registered some success at prevention, young people and adult women, especially married women, remain at the greatest risk of contracting HIV.

The most immediate cause of women’s HIV vulnerability in most settings is their limited power to negotiate safer sex, combined with the lack of female-controlled HIV prevention methods other than the female condom.

The global community needs to maximise the use of HIV prevention interventions that are available today, including widespread HIV and sexuality education, particularly for young people; efforts to shift gender norms that put women and girls at a disadvantage; and the development of newer and better prevention options.

As a proponent of the ABC strategy, I have come to the realisation that in order to ultimately end this epidemic, we need to advocate even better options, like the development of vaccines. An effective vaccine would offer women the possibility of a long-term method that can be used with or without their partners’ knowledge or cooperation.

A vaccine would be particularly important in addressing the vulnerability of adolescent girls, as they could potentially be vaccinated before the onset of sexual activity or coercive or transactional sex. I am proud that Uganda is at the forefront of the development of an Aids vaccine by hosting trials through collaboration among the government, the Uganda Virus Research Institute, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, the Makerere University Walter Reed Project and the Makerere University John Hopkins Research Collaboration. If an Aids vaccine is to become a reality in the near future, there is a need to significantly expand political support for Aids vaccine research globally.

My appeal to all members of the Commonwealth is that they play their part in finding an Aids vaccine. Heavily affected countries should support vaccine trials and can invest in their own research capacity, for instance, by committing to train the next generation of researchers.

Countries with established research capacity should increase and sustain their funding for research to combat HIV, TB, malaria and other neglected diseases. They should also explore incentives to stimulate greater private sector engagement.

Donor nations should help ensure adequate support for Aids vaccine research and development. Without better prevention, the costs of treating Aids will only continue to soar.

It is my hope that the commonwealth meeting will build on the many previous declarations from United Nations High Level Meetings and African Summits to previous Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings. We must act now to save generations of women, men and children from the Aids pandemic.

The writer is the First Lady of the Republic of Uganda and Member of Parliament for Ruhama County Constituency