By Ahereza Stepehn
Climate change is among the worst global challenges of our times. It threatens the lives and livelihoods of over 100 million people globally. Acute hunger continues to ravage Uganda’s North-Eastern sub-region of Karamoja in what government attributes to prolonged droughts across the country.
The North-Eastern Karamoja sub-region exemplifies this crisis. Prolonged droughts, erratic rainfall patterns, and extreme heat exacerbated by climate change have led to consecutive years of failed harvests, livestock losses, and severe food insecurity.
In May 2023, the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC), a statutory body, reported that over 2,000 people died of hunger in the arid Karamoja sub-region. The UHRC report breaks down the hunger-related deaths as 1, 676 being the highest number in Kotido district, 225 people died of hunger in Kabong district, 166 in Moroto district and Napak district registered 135 deaths to hunger. Karenga district was the least with 8 people dying of hunger in 2022 alone.
The long dry spell in the region was partly due to State failure to anticipate, reduce and rapidly respond to disaster risks.
Climate change is a grave threat to people worldwide worsening food insecurity increasing hunger and poverty, affecting communities and disrupting normal livelihood activities.
Following the death of 16 recent reported deaths in karamoja due to famine, the government of Uganda still has a lot to do to protect its citizens from such Hazards rather than waiting on to supply food relief.
Climate change especially the extreme heat in the northern parts of Uganda has emerged fast growing and deadly threat to livelihoods, straining health systems, disrupting economies and compounding death and vulnerabilities in the region and these have been recurring incidences. We saw the 2020 scenario when the areas were attacked by locusts that destroyed farmer’s gardens and the region lost its biodiversity.
Over 90% of the karamajongs depend on livestock, these locusts ravaged the same vegetation that provides pasture to the livestock. All these are signs that the government has to give critical attention to the northern part than waiting for circumstances to happen and then plan to help. Extreme heat is a silent killer that needs urgent and coordinated action.
The government should prioritize multi-hazard early warning systems to predict, address compounding, cascading and simultaneous climate risks through a single coordinated framework. This will help to manage and prepare for the upcoming threats and hazards in advance reducing the risks and the impact.
The government should also promote small holder farmers’ involvement in blended farming of local drought-resilient varieties, crop rotation with local legume varieties, and improved seed farming to enhance the adoption of good agronomic practices and post-harvest handling, to influence mindset change from reliance on cattle keeping as the mainstay and minimize effects of climate change. Use of Corresponding fertilizers and solar powered irrigation systems would be a great ideal to curb famine and enhance crop productivity in the region than relying on rain.
More so, the government should establish permanent food stores in the karamoja region to enhance readiness and preparedness rather than waiting for people to die and think of acting. Also, apart from irrigation, the government should look forward to establishing rainwater harvesting systems in the region to help supply water during the dry periods for sustainability.
For God and my country.
The writer, Ahereza Stephen is the Director ACEJ Uganda.
