Structural adjustment
The impact of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) on the pastoral economy: the case of Ngoma sub-county, Luwero district
Ugandan pastoral households became better off during the early 1990s
Authors:
W.K. Monte; P. Katebalirwe
Publisher:
Network of Ugandan Researchers and Research Users , 2002
This study investigates the impact of the structural adjustment policies initiated in the early 1990s, on pastoral economies in Uganda. Drawing on interviews conducted in 1996 of 90 households in Ngoma sub-country, Luwero district, Uganda, it examines the current socio-economic situation of pastoral households and patterns in production and market participation, in an attempt to gauge what changes have taken place since the introduction of structural adjustment.
Its findings reveal that:
- pastoralists have continued to keep livestock as their main occupation
- married women are increasingly moving away from housework as their main occupation to participate in non-farm activities
- 90 per cent of households indicated that they did not have a school within three miles five years ago, but only 44 per cent indicated that they still did not have a school within three miles at the time of the study, and school participation by both girls and boys had increased
- a larger proportion of households owned bicycles and radios at the time of the study than five years before, suggesting that household welfare had improved
- few households (under 30 per cent) bought or used modern consumer commodities such as clothes, paraffin, or sugar, and this appears to have remained stable over the five year period, except for veterinary drugs, the use of which had increased from 21 to 56 per cent
- the number of households fencing off their land and holding land leases had increased, indicating that communal land ownership was becoming rarer
- there was a steady increase in market participation including sale of beef animals and milk bi-products, and prices of pastoral products increased
- there were minimal changes in the social structure of pastoral society, especially in the gender division of labour, and there had been little progress in infrastructure development such as road networks, and building of health facilities.
The study recommends that:
- for structural adjustment to have more positive and far reaching effects on the pastoral economy, there is a need to improve the road network and other types of economic infrastructure such as banking and valley dams
- government and communities should mobilise resources to increase investment in education and health
- investment in small-scale agro-processing industries such as milk preservation and cooling plants would help to add value and should be promoted.
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