Uganda must make greater strides toward stemming the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country, AIDS Commission Director General David Kihumuro Apuuli said Monday when releasing Uganda's 2005 HIV/AIDS status survey, Uganda's New Vision reports. Apuuli, speaking at the fourth Annual Partnership Forum outside the capital city of Kampala, said the report shows that transmission rates are shifting from the youth to Ugandan adults ages 30 to 40, with current prevalence rates in that age group at 6.4%.

In Uganda a palliative care service has been successfully implemented in three districts with outreach to other parts of the country. The key to its success is that service is centered on the patient and focused on the quality of care rather than quantity. Hospice Africa Uganda's (HAU) palliative care service started in Kampala in 1993 with funds for a team of three over three months. The Government also allowed the importation of low cost powdered oral morphine.

Uganda's ministry of Health will in the first quarter of this year launch Coartem, a new drug for the treatment of malaria. The ministry realised that the efficacy of the current drugs in use was below the standards set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The government has obtained financial assistance of $64 million for the next two years from the Global Fund for HIV/Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis to purchase the drug following failure in the current treatment regimes.

The judge due to hear the treason trial of Uganda's opposition leader has withdrawn from the case, saying there was a perception he would be biased. Judge John Bosco Katutsi described the view as "absolute rubbish" but said a judge should be above suspicion. He said he had had sleepless nights and his health had suffered. He is the second judge to withdraw from a case concerning Kizza Besigye - expected to be the strongest challenger in elections due on 23 February.

At least two million registered voters are expected to turn up at polling stations without voters' cards, Daily Monitor has learnt. The Electoral Commission announced last week (February 2) that, due to delays in cleaning up the national voters' register, registered voters will be allowed to cast their votes in the forthcoming elections even if they do not have cards, as long as they can identify themselves. "People who registered in the recent update do not have cards and they are about two million," the EC Database Manager, Mr Pontius Namugera said in an interview. Namugera said the number is likely to be higher because the Commission has not distributed all the 8.5 million voters' cards it ordered.

Five years ago when Lake Victoria water levels started to fall, nobody thought it would turn out into a national crisis. Even as the fishermen, whose livelihood is wholly dependent on the water, raised an alarm, few expected the current outcry on power outages, rationed water supply and international environmental crisis threatening the livelihoods of over 30 million people.

This World Vision International Resources on Child Rights report documents the impact of the war in northern Uganda, where more than 30,000 children have been abducted and forced to work as soldiers and sex slaves, and includes new information about prospects for peace. The report looks specifically at the social and economic costs of the conflict, and processes to end the conflict. It argues that the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Sudan increases the opportunity for negotiations and multi-lateral engagement in northern Uganda.

A few days ago, the Uganda government "revised" the accreditation for Will Ross, the BBC's correspondent in Kampala, from 12 months down to four. Freelance journalist Blake Lambert, who has reported from Uganda for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Economist, and other news outlets, has been checking the mailbox for his accreditation, but the authorities have not posted it. Information Minister James Buturo said the step was taken because foreign journalists had become a "security threat". For good measure, no foreign journalists can now travel more than 100 kilometres outside the capital without some kind of special permission.

While 80% of Uganda’s population lives in rural areas, 70% of communication services are in urban areas. Only 2% of rural people access mobile telecommunications unlike 16.6% of their urban counterparts. Only 4% of Ugandans access grid power. “It’s rather unfortunate because rural areas produce more than 80% of Uganda’s wealth,” Dr. Fredrick Tusubira of Makerere University ICT support center says in a paper titled 'Uganda: Challenges of the digital divide and telecommunications sector'.

Uganda is expected to shut down the two hydroelectricity stations on the River Nile in Jinja, as water levels drop and the combined output from the complex falls to a five-year low of 170 MW. The crisis is projected to last for the next four years, until additional hydropower capacity becomes available either at Bujagali or Karuma Falls in 2010. Already, the government, the World Bank and Acres International, which jointly built the Kiira Hydropower Station, are being accused of using faulty technical calculations and ignoring warnings that it would never produce the projected power and would lead to a drop in the level of Lake Victoria.

The General Court Martial (GCM) does not have powers to try civilians, the Constitutional Court in Uganda has ruled. This renders presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye's case before it null and void. Dr. Besigye with 22 co-accused was facing the GCM on charges of terrorism and illegal possession of firearms. The hearing of the case was halted however after the High Court stayed proceedings of the case.

The event Africa Source II, focusing on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) took place between January 8-15, in Kalangala, Uganda. The event specialised in hands on skills development for the Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) sector, bringing together over 120 NGO support professionals, staff and software experts. Becky Faith reports on how participants learnt about using FOSS to increase vital access to information and provide inexpensive and efficient ICT infrastructure.

"When the rules of the game change we have an opportunity to change our circumstances.” With these words Mark Shuttleworth, open source advocate and Afronaut, addressed the 140 participants at Africa Source 2 which was held in a beautiful location at Kalangala, on Uganda's Ssese Islands.

The event was intended to provide NGO activists, educators and technologists space to get hands on experience with Free and Open Source Software, but the participatory and enabling environment meant that participants returned home with more than a handful of free CDs.

The three tracks of ‘Migration for Education and Resource Centers’, ‘Migration for Non Profit Sector’ and ‘Information Handling and Advocacy’ showed how participants from these sectors might use open source tools. What was revelatory was not only the fact that the everyday tools we might use for our work have robust free alternatives but that each and every one of us have skills and experiences that are useful for us to share.

In the information handling track some time was spent exploring collaborative software. An introduction to Wiki's showed how they might be easily set up through sites like http://www.wikispaces.com/ and prove valuable in an educational context. Content management systems (http://www.socialsource.org.uk/pmwiki.php/IssuesAndResources/ContentMan…) were demoed and compared as well as tools for the use of SMS in activism and human rights monitoring such as Txtmob (http://www.txtmob.com/) and Asterisk (http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/). Activists from Egypt discussed the importance of blogging in recent political campaigns (http://www.manalaa.net/egblogs) and how RSS feeds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_%28file_format%29) were a vital tool in mobilising participation.

Other sessions saw the concepts of open knowledge explored in greater depth. An introduction to copyright and the creative commons movement (http://www.commons-sense.org/) showed how the burgeoning digital commons can benefit Africa and how adoption of creative commons licenses (http://creativecommons.org/license/) can actually be a smart business model.

Yet computers can only serve to empower communities if they are adapted for local needs. Africa Source provided an opportunity for the localisation (http://translate.org.za/, http://translate.or.ug/) of popular software such as Open Office and showed how others might go about localising into their language.

The empowerment of disabled computer users was also addressed. Arun Mehta called for help for the visually challenged from geeks - (http://wiki.africasource2.tacticaltech.org/post/main/02mAzpaeWZNprwBC). He would like to see open source screenreaders to help blind and illiterate computer users - the proprietary Windows software costs in the region of $900.

Throughout Africa Source 2 participants were encouraged to offer their skills and experiences to benefit others. Most technical environments offer a strict division between 'techies' (usually male) and non techies, yet the atmosphere at Kalangala encouraged those with any skills or experience to share them with the group.

Africa Source 2 also saw major progress in the development of the African Linux Chix community. Women from Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and Egypt got together to discuss how they might advocate for open source amongst women. Mentoring for school-age girls to get them to consider information technology as a career was seen as a top priority. The openness of the FOSS community was seen as a great opportunity for learning and participation by women. To join the mailing lists in English and French visit the site at http://www.africalinuxchix.org/.

* Becky Faith is Fahamu’s production manager.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Website links:

http://www.bytesforall.org/
http://foss4us.org

Julius Kapwepwe Mishambi, Programme Officer for the Uganda Debt Network, a civil society organization campaigning on debt relief issues, comments on the current trend of reduced donor funding for the Ugandan government’s budget support programme. In his analysis he criticises donor aid pointing out some of the negative effects of the donor dependency syndrome, and proposes that Africa needs to explore alternatives for independence from donor aid.

One would be mesmerised, looking at the aid cut trends for Uganda by some of the country’s long time funding partners. Countries and institutions that have been instrumental to Uganda’s budget support have recently reduced their funding by millions of US dollars. The estimates at the end of 2005 are as follows: Ireland and Norway– 4 million each, Sweden - 8 million, the World Bank - 15million and the United Kingdom - 35 million.

Since the late 1990s, the Government of Uganda and donors agreed to a budget support programme captured in Uganda’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper; the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP). Holding other factors constant, an aid cut means the programmes will be starved of resources. My major concern in this regard is the implication of this for the social sectors of health and education.

We ought to recall here that Uganda was one of the beneficiaries of debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. This programme was engineered by the Bretton Woods Institutions - the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and The World Bank. The initiative was a response to the embarrassment occasioned by the outcomes of the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) advocated by these twin cheat institutions for developing economies, particularly in Africa and Latin America. HIPC was also viewed as a response to the heat of the global call, under the Jubilee debt cancellation campaign, for the end to the killer debt burden borne by the developing economies of the world.

So, what was the original intention of aid support of the 1990s in Uganda, at least at face value? Was it aimed at beefing up Uganda’s savings of debt relief resources for anti-poverty efforts, as reflected in the national policy objectives of Primary Health Care (PHC) and Universal Primary Education (UPE) programmes and other sub-programmes in the war against poverty?

To my mother in rural Kumi district in Uganda, and those in the Zambezi region of Zambia and Ruvuma in Tanzania, the anti-poverty programmes have been of direct help, to a certain degree. Consequently, the no-flow of drugs to health centres due to the aid cut makes those categories of people the primary losers. Cutting this type of aid is criminal, defeats morality and such international goals as contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Ironically, the same masters of aid espouse these ideals, at least at face value.

On the contrary, I would argue that aid cuts could be justified for a different category - the expatriate donor community - the type characterized by huge salaries, residential mansions in prime locations in the recipient countries and first class air travellers. The meagre trickle down effects of these expatriate expenditures in our country’s economy cannot compensate for the losses occasioned by the resultant dependency syndrome created by the western world.

The talk of aid cuts is an opportunity for Africa. Africans ought to explore how Kenya has moved on for the past few years with neither aid nor loans from the World Bank. Government securities (bonds and treasury bills) contribute about 6% to the country’s national budget, with the rest accruing from the Kenya government’s own, generated revenues. The government has continued to fund its industrial growth. Africans should opt for frugality so that public expenditure is optimal. For example, Uganda’s expenditure could rhyme with PEAP priority areas, already elaborated upon and jointly updated periodically by the national and local governments, faith-based and civil society organizations, academia and research institutions, individual pressure and interest groups in Uganda, etc. Is it not possible to acquire an affordable yet comfortable car for a government official whose work is over 80% city based? Does a spokesperson for the government need a 4000cc vehicle to ably articulate government positions at a weekly press briefing? How about invoking government standing orders, which provide that government vehicles should only do government business, to reduce the cost of fleet maintenance? Indeed, does a president require 20 armoured cars for his/her security?

Surely, aid conditionality has been an obstacle to decision-making of African countries. The Structural Adjustment Programmes (especially privatisation and liberalization) attest to this. In Uganda for example, the lack of hydropower dams on various suitable sites along river Nile has been a domain of aid influence. As a result, companies in Uganda continue to spend huge sums of money on announcing the schedule for load shedding. These sums should instead be expended on inviting the public to witness the opening of new power sources and resources.

Aid was used to perpetuate the tyranny of the Bath Party led by Saddam Hussein in Iraq and kuku wazabanga Mobutu in former Zaire, for decades. It served to suffocate the interests and human rights of ordinary citizens. But the governance issues that donors have raised should not simply be wished away but squarely addressed. The issues are part and parcel of Africa’s socio-economic and political development aspirations.

* Julius Kapwepwe Mishambi is Programme Officer for the Uganda Debt Network

* Please send comments to [email protected]

For a country like Uganda, the debt relief initiative championed by rock stars, activists and politicians could have a wide-reaching impact, saving the nation tens of millions of dollars a year and helping thousands to go to school. However, in contrast to other development assistance, the unconditional nature of the debt relief plan places the onus on governments to ensure the savings genuinely assist the poor. Even some debt relief activists voice concerns about how the cash will be spent.

The Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA) in collaboration with International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (INTERIGHTS) will hold a workshop on Using International Law to Litigate Sexual and Domestic Violence Cases in Kampala from 27- 29 March 2006. The workshop, which will focus on sexual and domestic violence, will consider ways in which such violence can be addressed through litigation, particularly by reference to regional and international instruments and mechanisms.

At least 11 people in northeastern Uganda have died from suspected meningitis after a specimen taken from one patient tested positive for the disease, health officials have said. "A single positive result indicates that there is a meningitis outbreak in the area and we have sent a team to help in the control," health ministry spokesman Paul Kaggwa said.

Uganda's opposition Forum for Democratic Change has lodged a complaint that supporters of the National Resistance Movement are tearing down their leader's posters for the presidential campaigns. They say NRM supporters tear the posters of the FDC presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, and replace them with those of President Yoweri Museveni in the municipality.
The area CID Officer said they were investigating the matter.

Uganda's Global Fund probe was dismayed by revelations that the country's health ministers borrowed sh7m from the Global Fund for malaria to campaign for last year's referendum on change of political systems. The chairman, Justice James Ogoola, condemned the "borrowing," calling it an act of depriving malaria patients of their aid to the benefit of a partisan political activity. The commission was hearing evidence from the project manager of the Malaria Control Programme under the health ministry.

In Uganda, the worst Members of Parliament over the last year have been revealed in a survey commissioned by the Daily Monitor, a local daily. The survey, which covers the period from August 2004 to August 2005, measures the performance of the MPs by their contributions to bills, motions, reports and any other contributions.Army MPs were some of the worst performers in the House, contributing three members to the top-ten list of non-performers. Yet the Army lobbied extensively and successfully to keep its slots in the House when Parliament reviewed the need for special interest group MPs earlier this month.

Over an 8-day period, 140 people from around Africa and beyond, came together to live, learn and be inspired at the Africa Source II FOSS technology workshop, organised by the Tactical Tech team. Presented in 3 main tracks, participants were invited to share their stories and learn from experts in the fields of ‘Information handling and citizen’s media’, ‘Migration for education and resource centres’ and ‘Migration for NGOs’. Sessions covered items such as Alternative Access and localisation. Undoubtedly, the non-profit and non-governmental sectors in Africa are turning to FOSS to solve their technology problems.

http://za.creativecommons.org/blog/archives/2006/01/17/a-source-of-insp…

Further Resources:
Africa Source II - http://www.tacticaltech.org/africasource2
Africa Source II Wiki - http://wiki.africasource2.tacticaltech.org/
Tactical Technology Collective blog - http://www.tacticaltech.org/africasource2/blog
foss4us blog - http://foss4us.org/blog