Photo: David Hecht/IRIN

Indigenous West African rice

BISSAU, 29 February 2008 (IRIN) - According to the government’s current estimates, donors will need to provide 20,000 tonnes of food aid to compensate for expected production shortfalls in 2008.

Aid experts in Bissau, however, said that if the government had better policies, and if the rains came at the right time, the country should be able to feed itself with current levels of international assistance.

“The government has to act quickly before it’s too late,” UN World Food Programme (WFP) head of programmes Jean-Martin Bauer told IRIN. “With smart policies the problems of previous years can be avoided,” he said.

During the so-called “lean season” in 2007, from June to August, 43 percent of people in rural areas did not have adequate food, according to WFP, and some 20 percent of the population of 1.6 million received food aid. Bauer said it was possible the situation could become worse this year but currently WFP stocks were based on roughly the same level of need as 2007.

Guinea-Bissau has good soils and high rainfall but poor infrastructure to bring goods to market. It also has ineffective agricultural practices that make food security highly dependent on external factors such as world commodity prices and the weather.

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

WFP head of programmes in Guinea Bissau Jean Martin Bauer speaks to IRIN reporter, Feburary 2008.

Rice, the country’s staple, is mostly farmed without irrigation systems so a good harvest is largely a matter of luck, agricultural experts say. The government also faces financial constraints, with an agriculture budget of just 400 million CFA francs (US$917,000). “That’s hardly enough for the Ministry of Agriculture to pay its employees and keep functioning,” UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) programme officer Rui Fonseca told IRIN.

But he and others say the government could take action to minimise food shortfalls.

Officials from FAO and other UN agencies got together in 2007 to write a letter to the government, with specific recommendations and calling for discussions. “The government is yet to respond,” Fonseca said. “We have almost no information on what it is planning.”

“Rice-to-cashew ratio”

The core of Guinea Bissau’s food security problem is what Bauer calls “the rice-to-cashew ratio”. Farmers cannot grow enough rice to feed their families all year round so traditionally they have grown cashews which they sell or exchange for imported rice.

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

Cashew fruits

At one time farmers could sell a kilo of raw cashews for 200 CFA francs (40 US cents) which was the same price they could buy a kilo of imported rice. However, with more countries in the world growing cashews for export, world prices have dropped while rice prices have risen, largely because of transport costs and an increase in world demand in cereals.

During last year’s March-May cashew harvest, Guinea Bissau’s farmers sold their cashews for an average of 20 US cents a kilo, according to a survey conducted by WFP and the Ministry of Agriculture, while imported rice cost 50 US cents and has since gone up to 65 US cents and higher.

In the long run, Guinea Bissau farmers need to diversify what they grow so they do not only depend on cashews for cash - and consumers need to eat more sweet potatoes and other roots which are readily available. On 20 February FAO signed a $1.5 million project with the government to help diversify production, but it is unlikely to do much to reduce potential food shortages which are expected as early as June 2008.

Recommended cashew policy

In the meantime experts have a list of measures the government could take. One is to improve exports by lowering taxes. (Governments in many other cashew-producing countries do not impose such taxes on exporters).

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

Carlos Schwarz Silva who heads the NGO Acção para Desenvolvimento speaks to Irin reporter in Bissau Feburary 2008.

Another is to allow transporters to export overland to Senegal rather than require them to pass through the port of Bissau, which is slow and expensive. “The port here doesn’t really function,” Carlos Schwarz Silva, who heads the food security non-governmental organisation Acção para Desenvolvimento, told IRIN. “And I am not aware of anything being done to fix it.”

Other measures he and other experts call for include an end to the many illegal taxes at road blocks which local authorities demand of trucks transporting cashews and rice, as well as a reorganisation of the export market. “Currently there are too many middlemen each taking a profit and that reduces farmers’ earnings,” Silva said.
He also said the government should be monitoring world cashew prices and broadcasting the information every day on local radio. “This would help traders and farmers make more informed decisions about when to buy and sell,” he said.

Do not fix cashew prices

One thing the government must not do, according to Silva and the other experts, is repeat its 2006 policy of fixing the price at which farmers can sell their cashews. Exporters balked at the 350 CFA francs (65 US cents) a kilo price they were told they had to pay and went to other countries to buy.

In the end, many of Guinea Bissau’s farmers where so desperate to sell before the rains destroyed their stocks, they sold them for next to nothing; others simply lost everything.

The government will not make that mistake again, Bacar Djassi, secretary of state for food security, told IRIN. “We will keep the market free. We can’t afford to make the previous error of fixing prices.”

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

General view of the main port of Bissau, capital city of Guinea-Bissau Feburary 2008. Machinery at port has broken down and costs of imports and exports are rising.

Export problems

On some of the other policy proposals he was less obliging. “We think all cashews should pass through the port,” he said. “Certainly there were blockages there last year but they can be overcome this year, we think”.

When asked how exactly he would overcome the blockage, he simply said that exporting by land was not an option. “In fact we are doing everything we can to stop the export of cashews through Senegal because we don’t have the ability to impose taxes there,” he said.

Cashew export taxes, along with donor funding, are among the main sources of revenue for the government. Under pressure last year, the government did reduce some port handling taxes, but then confiscated large quantities of exporters’ stocks.

At that point many exporters who had been in the country for years left in a huff, including Olam, the world’s largest supplier of raw cashews. “We have tried to convince Olam and other big wholesalers to come back but so far we have not been successful,” Djassi said.

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

The government’s secretary of state for food security Bacar Djassi speaks to Irin reporter in Bissau, Feburary 2008.

Recommended rice policy

Asked how he would ensure that rice is available in Guinea Bissau all year round, Djassi’s answer was that there is little his government can do. “We are victims of climate change,” he said. “Last year we had lots of rain but over a very short period and the seeds all dried up.”

“We cannot stop that happening again this year,” he said, “so we estimate that we need 20,000 metric tonnes of food aid.”

But experts say there is plenty the government can do. “It can prepare now ahead of the rainy season by providing seeds to those farmers who were so hungry last year they had to eat their seeds,” Silva said. “And it can find better varieties of rice with shorter growing seasons of three rather than four months. That way we will be less dependent on the rains,” he said.

Another measure some experts call for is lower taxes on imported rice. Others argue that that would undermine efforts to increase local production and diversify into other staple crops, but for Bauer the demand is a reality and supply is clearly inadequate. “You cannot get around the fact that more than 36 percent of Guinea Bissau’s cereal needs cannot be met by local production,” he said.

Officially the government has lowered import duties on rice from 16 percent to 12.5 percent in 2008, WFP said, although it was unable to confirm that the lower tax scale was actually being applied.

The government should have a strong interest in ensuring that its people have enough rice, Silva said. “Guinea Bissau people are a peaceful people until they face rice shortages,” he said. “The overthrow of the government in 1980 was known as the ‘rice coup d’état’,” he added.

Rice harvests at the end of 2007 were 9 percent below that of 2006, according to a joint assessment by the Ministry of Agriculture, FAO and CILSS (Comité Permanent Inter Etats de lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel).

Experts have already found signs of impending food shortages in the north this year. A joint food security mission in February reported that rains came at the wrong time and many rice fields in the mangrove swamps there have been decimated.

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Photo: Tesfalem Waldyes/IRIN

John Holmes (middle) listening to local officials during his visit to Konso in southern Ethiopia

KARAT, 3 September 2008 (IRIN) - The crowd that filled Konso Mekane Yesus primary school in Karat town, 600km south of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, were not pupils, but hundreds of mothers and children forced by food shortages to queue for relief rations.

Waiting on 2 September, they each received a quarterly ration of 25kg of corn-soya blend and three litres of edible oil and information on child health.

“I became a beneficiary after my baby girl had fallen sick,” 35-year old Bende Kemba said. “Her belly was swollen and she became thin.”

Bende’s 19-month old baby Gnezebe Ole was her fifth child. Difficulties in providing for the child forced her, three-months earlier, to register with the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) targeted supplementary feeding program.

The programme, which supports 5,502 mothers and malnourished children in Konso, is part of a child survival initiative that targets 5.8 million children under five and 1.6 million pregnant and lactating women in 325 districts of Ethiopia.

Failed rains

A drought hit Bende’s village of Nalaya Segen and the whole of Konso.

“The main rain falls from mid-February to mid-May [and] determines the success of crop production that year,” said Gelebo Goltomo, chief administrator of Konso. “Failure of the main rains led to a nearly complete loss of the main season’s harvest; most households in the district have run out of food since June.”

Farmer Kusse Gelabo, a father of nine, has two hectares in Sorobo Kebele - a difficult mountainous terrain.

Previously, Kusse would harvest 50 quintals of sorghum from his farmland, but the February rains fell for only three days. Over the next months, he ploughed his farmland four times, hoping the rains would come. Nothing happened.

“I did not get anything at all,” Kusse told Sir John Holmes, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, who was on a three-day mission Ethiopia.

Konso area already suffered chronic poverty, food insecurity and has a high population density, acute land shortage and poor soils.

“Even in normal rainfall years, about one third of the population is only able to feed themselves for a maximum of eight months,” Gelebo said. “Drought is the major factor responsible for the emergency that now confronts the district, but soaring food prices are also partly responsible.”

Food crisis

Holmes met farmers who had lost their crops to drought and visited an outpatient therapeutic and stabilisation centre run by Save The Children - US. He also witnessed food being distributed by the government to chronically food insecure people.

“Ethiopia is facing a food crisis that is one of the worst in the world, especially in terms of malnutrition among children,” he said. “It is important that we make every effort to deal quickly and comprehensively with this tragedy.”

Approximately 75,000 Ethiopian children have been directly affected by the drought and are at risk of severe acute malnutrition, while 4.6 million people throughout the country are receiving emergency food aid.

Ethiopia is facing a food crisis that is one of the worst in the world, especially in terms of malnutrition among children…it is important that we make every effort to deal quickly and comprehensively with this tragedy”

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the situation has worsened due to a shortage of emergency resources including ready-to-use therapeutic food, emergency relief food and other critical supplies.

In recent months, affected households have tried but in many cases found it hard to cope. Bende, for example, heavily depends on the local market where she sells firewood. Her sales, however, can no longer buy enough food for the family because prices have risen sharply since June - and she has to support a sick husband.

“I live while begging God and the government,” she told IRIN at Karat on 1 September.

Admasu Assefa, the supplementary feeding coordinator in Konso said 85 percent of the 245,400 people in the district were in need of help but only 61 percent currently received relief. “Even better-off households only have a two months back-up,” Admasu said. “Within a few months, the number will increase.”

A screening exercise conducted by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in May found 1,991 malnourished mothers and children in the district, he added. That number rose by 160 percent during a follow-up screening in August.

Seeking more aid

The situation has been aggravated by inadequate funding, aid agencies said. WFP is facing a US$140 million funding shortfall while the Ethiopian government, other agencies and NGOs have equally been constrained by lack of resources.

Save the Children, for example, is seeking US$20 million to support its programmes, including feeding nearly 10,000 malnourished children in four regions. “The international aid effort has already saved thousands of children’s lives,” spokesperson David Throp said.

“We know that children could die, even after initial treatment for malnutrition, if we are not able to stabilise their health properly,” he added.

“There is not enough money behind the aid operation to do this at the moment. Extra funding is also needed [to] re-establish ways for families to earn a living, so that they have enough money to see them through the crisis and beyond.”

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Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN

People have to borrow food

MASERU, 17 September 2008 (IRIN) - Mantseuoa Rantho has been feeding her family on credit. “We call it living on skoloto [credit] in Sesotho,” she says. She now owes her neighbours in Ha Tsiu, a village tucked away in Lesotho’s Thaba Putsoa Mountains, 100km east of the capital, Maseru, three bowls of maize-meal.

Rantho keeps a mental note of her creditors; when she does manage to find the money to buy a sack of maize-meal, she laughs, “You should see how quickly it all disappears.”

She depends on casual work on neighbouring farms to feed five children – four of her own and an orphaned niece. Lately there has been no work because the farmers are still recovering from the drought in 2007, one of the worst in 30 years.

Inputs were delayed in the 2007/08 season, so the farmers planted less, which meant there were fewer labour opportunities. Planting for the 2008/09 season, which usually begins in September, has been delayed. There is no sign of rain.

She also tries to find work in neighbouring villages, and in the past few weeks two of her teenage daughters have had to leave home to find work to support the family.

Lesotho imports 70 percent of its food requirements and has been hit hard by soaring global food and fuel prices. “I can’t even remember the last time I bought [cooking] oil!” laughs Rantho. Prices are higher in rural areas, which are poorly served by public transportation. A 750ml bottle of cooking oil can cost her as much as $2 - more than double the price in neighbouring South Africa, from where it is imported.

During school terms the younger children receive morning porridge and lunch from the World Food Programme (WFP), which supports the Lesotho government in providing two free meals a day to 80,483 pupils in 478 primary schools located in the remote and economically disadvantaged highland and mountainous regions of the country.

I can’t even remember the last time I bought [cooking] oil!

“When there is no school, it is back to skoloto,” she grins. Her ability to laugh keeps her upbeat, and credit is her coping mechanism. But she is an exception; few rural dwellers feel optimistic, although most also have to get by on skoloto. Retselisitsoe Rasetona, in the neighbouring village of Ha Koporale, quips, “We have no food, so we have to borrow; that is how we survive.”

The situation in the rural remote areas, where almost 90 percent of the population lives, is particularly dire. In June 2008 a survey in Bobete village, in the mountainous Thaba-tseka district in eastern Lesotho, by a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Catholic Relief Services, found almost 61 percent of the respondents had borrowed food, or money to buy food; half said they ate smaller meals to ensure there was food for children.

More than half the children in Thaba-Tseka district were found to be chronically malnourished, according to a survey in December 2007 by the Lesotho government, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, Action Against Hunger and WFP.

UNICEF helped the government conduct the nutrition survey, as well as revitalise its National Nutrition Surveillance system after the government declared a state of emergency in 2007, when the drought left 30 percent of the population in need.

The results of the survey showed that 42 percent of children below the age of five were stunted or suffering chronic malnutrition, indicating a lack of nutritious food for a long period of time among other factors.
 
Most Basotho rely on remittances from family members working in towns or government labour programmes, or in neighbouring South Africa.

More in need

The rainfall forecast for the 2008/09 season is not good, according to Peter Muhangi, a UNICEF project officer supporting the Vulnerability Assessment Committee (VAC), which has identified 353,000 people - about 20 percent of the 1.8 million population - who will be in need of food assistance in 2008/09.

These figures have not taken into account the poor rain forecast for the coming season. “The numbers in need could increase,” said Esther Kabaire, of the Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping (VAM) branch of WFP.

“In a situation where about one in two children are currently chronically malnourished, any trigger, such as poor rainfall, could push the country into a crisis,” said Wisam Al-Timimi, UNICEF’s Child Survival specialist in Lesotho. “One has to take into account that several months have elapsed since the survey, and prices have continued to rise in Lesotho.”

The country produces about 30 percent of its 344,000 metric tonne national cereal requirement and imports the remaining 70 percent. The price of national staple, maize-meal, shot up by 59 percent between July 2008 and March 2007, a WFP survey noted, while cooking oil has risen by 100 percent over the same period.

Declining food production

The average farmer in Lesotho grows around 30 percent of his household’s food requirements and buys the rest. Agriculture is the mainstay of rural communities and provides livelihood support to over 70 percent of the population, according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and WFP.

Crop production, accounting for 70 percent of agricultural gross domestic product (GDP), is virtually all rain-fed; livestock production represents 30 percent of agricultural GDP.

Besides the drought in 2007, over the years increasing amounts of arable land have been left uncultivated because of unpredictable weather, a lack of cash for inputs, severe soil erosion, lack of sustainable land management practices and a shortage of farm labour as a result of HIV and AIDS, the FAO has said.

Lesotho’s HIV prevalence rate of 23.2 percent is one of the world’s highest, and the country has more than 100,000 children orphaned by AIDS. The World Bank estimates that by 2015 Lesotho’s GDP will be reduced by almost one-third as a result of HIV and AIDS.

This situation is set to worsen, as climate-change scenarios indicate that the country is set to suffer severe water stress in the next few decades.

Dependency on a single crop - mono-cropping of maize - makes farmers, especially those living in marginal and drought-prone areas, very vulnerable.

Help on the way?

The government is considering food/voucher assistance and programmes to distribute inputs; the VAC has recommended cash transfer interventions; UNICEF is helping the government set up sentinel sites to monitor nutrition levels across the country. “This will help to provide us with trends and help us prepare for any response should the need arise,” said Al-Timimi.

Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN

Mantseuoa Rantho with her niece trying to hide her smile.

WFP is providing food assistance to 155,000 vulnerable people in a programme targeting chronically poor and food-insecure beneficiaries of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), antiretroviral therapy (ART) and tuberculosis (TB) treatment in remote, mountainous and virtually inaccessible areas.

“But to qualify for this programme you need to have a certain CD4 count [which indicates the strength of the immune system] to be on ART,” said a nurse in a mountain village clinic. “But I get so many HIV-positive people, who are not on ART, crying for food. Many are starving; the government must help.”

Thirty years ago Lesotho was exporting cereals and vegetables, but with investment in agriculture, irrigation, and training in farming techniques, such as conservation agriculture, which requires minimal water, the situation can be turned around, said FAO country representative Memed Gunawan.

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Photo: Tesfalem/IRIN

This year’s enrollment at Bashiro Primary School is the lowest in three years

HWASSA, 9 October 2008 (IRIN) - Ethiopia’s schools have opened for the new academic year, but severe food insecurity in some regions has kept thousands of children out of class.

“This time last year we had already enrolled 2,300 students,” said Solomon Desta, director of Bashiro primary school in Bona district of Sidama zone in the Southern region. “Now we have registered 1,800.”

Solomon had prepared for 2,500 children because he was forced to send some children to other schools last year as Bashiro could not accommodate them all.

The school extended its registration deadline by 15 days from 1 September but still the numbers did not improve. “The turnout is the lowest of the last three years,” Solomon told IRIN.

The parents of the children who had stayed away explained they could not send them to school because there was little or nothing to eat at home.

Shemna Hurufa village, also in Sidama zone, the only primary school for grades one to four, had planned for at least 800 students this season, but only 710 had registered by 26 September.

“Compared to the vastness of our kebele [ward], we expected many children [to register for school],” the director, Lema Harriso, said. “There are about 400 children of school age in our kebele, but only 260 of them are registered.”

The school, Lema said, registered 860 children in September last year, but 200 had dropped out by the end of the school year in June.

These are just two of the many schools whose enrolments have been affected by food and water shortages in Ethiopia.

Below-average rains

According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net), extreme levels of food insecurity have persisted in southern and south-eastern Ethiopia. This is due to successive seasons of below-average rains, flooding in riverine areas, livestock disease, an army worm infestation, conflict, inadequate humanitarian assistance, and extremely high and rising food prices.

Oromiya, Southern, Tigray, Amhara, and Somali regions are the most food-insecure, with 297 woredas considered hot spots, where critical and serious levels of acute malnutrition have been reported.

Photo: Tesfalem/IRIN

Lema Harriso, director of Shemna Hurufa primary school, is worried about low student turnout

All of Somali region, but mainly Fik, Warder, Gode, Dagabhur, Korahe, Liben and Afder zones, require urgent assistance given the rapid declines in food security conditions over the past 18 months, FEWS Net stated in a 29 September update.

The situation in these areas has proved dire for parents. “For poor families, the basic costs of school materials are now completely prohibitive,” the NGO Save the Children said on 26 September.

“All money must go on finding food; in many cases children are not eating enough to be able to make the journey to school, and are unable to concentrate once they get there,” it added.

Findings by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in June showed a high drop-out rate this year in Oromiya, Tigray, Somali and Southern regions.

“Education has been disrupted in the drought-affected areas, resulting in decreased school attendance, increased drop-out rates, and teachers migrating from their assigned school as currently reported in parts of Oromiya, Southern and Somali regions,” the agency said.

Malnutrition

A large number of children in Shemna Hurufa are also malnourished, with many receiving therapeutic assistance.

Amanuel Eleso, 25, took his brother Henok, 8, to the centre when he realised he was ill. “Our mother died six years ago. There is no one who can take care of Henok.”

The eldest son with a weak, old father, Amanuel had taken Henok to live with his three children. Eventually he took in his 10- and 13-year-old brothers as well.

But the struggle to feed his brothers and his own children was too much. “Due to erratic rainfall, we do not produce enough maize,” Amanuel said. “The next harvest will only cover three to four months.”

Sidama zone depends on both short and main rainy seasons. The short season, belg, lasts from March to April and the main one from June to mid-September.

Photo: Tesfalem/IRIN

A health worker measures Henok’s arm at a therapeutic feeding centre

`Aid workers say the two seasons have performed poorly this year. In Hwassa Zuria woreda, where Amanuel lives, a nutritional survey in May and June by the NGO Goal and the regional Emergency Nutrition Co-ordination Unit found high severe acute malnutrition rates of 5.5 percent with 1.6 percent oedema, and global acute malnutrition rates of 29.9 percent.

Across the country, the government estimates that 6.4 million Ethiopians will need relief food in the coming months, including 1.9 million in Somali region.

This number is in addition to the 5.7 million Productive Safety Net Programme beneficiaries in drought-affected areas, who receive food and cash, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said.

High food prices

According to FEWS Net, prices have continued to rise, reducing food access for the urban poor, poor rural farmers, and pastoral and agro-pastoral populations.

“Cereal prices are extremely high compared to the same time last year, as well as the five-year average,” FEWS Net said. “In Addis Ababa, the nominal retail price of white maize was 176 percent and 224 percent higher, respectively.”

Amanuel said he could no longer afford to feed the children well. “When I took Henok for a medical check-up, they told me I should feed him properly,” he said. “Where can I get the food they talk about?”

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Photo: Vincent Mayanja/IRIN

A child from Karamoja begs on a Kampala street.

KAMPALA, 3 November 2008 (IRIN) - Agatha Locham, 23, sits with her two weak and malnourished children a few steps from the entrance to a bank in Kampala.

“Mpayo ekikumi [give me a 100-shilling coin],” the boy, his stomach distended, shouts at passers-by.

Locham and her children are among the increasing number of residents of the drought-prone region of Karamoja, north-eastern Uganda, who have travelled hundreds of kilometres to the city to beg to survive.

She said her malnourished child was weak because they had not had a decent meal in days.

Locham declined to reveal how much they made in a day, saying only that it was sufficient for a room in Kisenyi slum.

Up to 30 people live in rooms meant for five in Kisenyi, with children charged 100 shillings (five US cents) while adults pay 300 shillings (15 cents) per night.

“We live a hard life, but it is better than remaining in Karamoja where we lack food and security,” Locham said.

She said she left her village in Karamoja’s Bokora county because of “extreme hunger” and insecurity. The family’s cattle were taken by warriors, known as “karacunas”.

However, she said life on Kampala’s streets had other tribulations as her children faced threats such as abuse, disease and poor living conditions.

Most of the child beggars from Karamoja lack access to shelter and medical care, and most display signs of stunted growth.

Livelihood pressures

In Karamoja, the cow is the main resource, but many have been lost in the clashes, forcing locals to resort to other means of survival, including migrating to urban centres to eke out a living as porters, labourers or beggars. Charities estimate 90 percent of children on Kampala’s streets under the age of five are from Karamoja.

Photo: Vincent Mayanja/IRIN

Most of the child beggars from Karamoja lack access to shelter and medical care, and most display signs of stunted growth

The State Minister for Youth and Children’s Affairs, James Kinobe, said: “There are push factors behind this exodus. The information we have is that some people go and bring these children from their villages and use them to beg on the streets, then share the proceeds. This is unacceptable.”

The UN Children’s Agency (UNICEF) expressed grave concern. “UNICEF is engaged in concerted advocacy with national and local authorities in Uganda, with the aim of addressing the key factors which predispose children to risks like hazardous labour, exploitation and abuse,” Chulho Hyun, spokesman for UNICEF, said.

Life on the streets

Kinobe said the government wanted to stop one of the “pull factors” - easy money - by outlawing donations from pedestrians to these “abused children”.

“We want the Kampala City Council to pass a by-law outlawing helping these children on the streets; if we want to help them, we should do that at their homes so that we can get these children out of danger.”

He said some of the children were being rounded up and taken to a probation centre where they were offered social orientation lessons, given resettlement kits including blankets, clothes and soap, before being returned to Karamoja.

“But there is an organised racket that exploits the children as those retrieved from the streets are brought back to the streets,” he said.

The minister said some of the beggars were making as much as $25 daily.

“This income keeps them coming,” he said. “The money is shared between the person who gets them from Karamoja to outskirt towns like Iganga [eastern Uganda] and the one who connects the chain to Kampala.”

Shocks

But UNICEF said the cause of the migration from Karamoja to urban centres was not just about money.

Reducing vulnerability and deprivation is key to combating the risks to which children may be exposed

“The past three years of successive shocks - droughts, floods and insecurity - have not only heightened poverty in an already food-insecure sub-region, but also led to a pronounced trend of out-migration to urban centres and a host of protection concerns for separated children.

“Our main response has been to lead the effort to ensure the voluntary, safe and dignified return and reintegration of separated children.”

“Reducing vulnerability and deprivation is key to combating the risks to which children may be exposed,” he added.

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