5-16-07 Understanding Poverty in Northern Uganda

Understanding Poverty in Northern Uganda
Presented by Stephen Younger, Cornell University, SAGA Cooperative Agreement
Sponsored by USAID Office of Poverty Reduction/PASSN
May 16, 2007 

Dr. Steve Younger presented collaborative work on poverty in Northern Uganda, a region that has suffered from long-term conflict and deeply rooted poverty. Dr. Younger and his colleagues derived an interesting composite of poverty in the region using the Uganda Bureau of Statistics’ regional survey which for the first time includes data from IDP (internally displaced persons) camps. Their analysis found marked disparities both spatially and according to social groups, disappointing progress on poverty rates, and little assistance provided to households suffering shocks.

Background and Methodology
General Findings
    On insecurity
    On IDP camp living
    On risks and shocks
Conclusions
Q&A
About Professor Steve Younger and the SAGA Cooperative Agreement

The presentation was based on a paper by Sarah Ssewanyana, Ibrahim Kasirye, and Dr. Younger entitled “Strengthening the Understanding of the Dynamics of Poverty in Northern Uganda.” The study was part of the World Bank’s Northern Uganda risk and vulnerability assessment. Dr. Younger’s contribution was supported by the SAGA cooperative agreement funded by EGAT’s Poverty Analysis and Social Safety Nets (PASSN) team. SAGA worked closely with the Economic Policy Research Centre in Kampala.

Conducted in 2004, the survey was used to estimate vulnerability and living standards. Previous surveys were not conducted in the northern Uganda regions or the IDP camps due to security concerns.  Mostly northern and some eastern areas were surveyed, which contains less than a quarter of Uganda’s population.

General Findings

Between 1992 and 1999, there were overall declines in poverty for the country, but less so in the North. Even more striking was the fact that between 1999-2004 poverty went back up in the North while it continued to decline, at a lesser rate, in other regions. During those years Uganda grew between 2-3% per capita per year, but the benefits didn’t go to the North, which was also the time when civil conflict worsened.

• Roughly half of those surveyed said poverty had gone down since 1992. This number is higher if the highest conflict areas are excluded, such as the Acholi region and IDP camps.
• Inequality has increased in northern Uganda.  Respondents that lived in an IDP camp had a lower average consumption per capita compared to other areas (an 8% difference). Expenditures are always higher in urban areas than rural, upwards of 70%. It tells us that living standards in the camps are low, but also that the North in general is poor, not just the camps.
• Effects of education: the higher the household head’s education was, the higher his/her household’s consumption; almost a 30% increase from primary to secondary schooling.

Most indicators of vulnerability such as being an orphan or widowed, being elderly, or being handicapped, have only slightly negative effects on consumption. Even households that were forced to migrate due to insecurity do not have consumption that is too much below that of other households in the region, particularly when compared with the much larger impacts of education and place of residence. Other indicators of shocks (i.e. droughts, torrential rains, violence, death, crime, etc.),  also have surprisingly small impacts on household well-being.

On insecurity:

• Insecurity is not a generalized problem in the North but rather is limited to specific areas of the North.
• By far the most important cause of death of a household member in the past year was disease, not conflict.  The next highest cause was old age.
• The Karamoja region is where the majority of the cattle rustling occurs. Every community reported having some cattle rustling. In the Acholi region, where the LRA (rebel group) has affected the community, there were high amounts, but not much more than elsewhere.
• School and health centers stayed closed the longest in high conflict areas such as the Acholi and Lango regions, which was also where living standards were worse. Other regions had closings but they didn’t remain closed as long.
• Despite insecurity concerns, 63% of the community said they felt safe. This does not reflect sentiment all over the North but in concentrated areas. Beyond the LRA conflict and cattle rustling, people were not mentioning other sources of insecurity.

On IDP camp living:

• There was wealth convergence among IDPs, with those relatively wealthy before the conflict  losing a lot and those already impoverished living at the same level or better in the camps.
• Internal remittances were included in the expenditure measures but proved insignificant.  There was little flow either to the camps or out of the camps, probably due to the level of insecurity.
• Basic social services were being delivered at or better rates in the camps than outside. In fact, most IDPs made use of the health centers in the camps and had safe drinking water.  The camps have been in existence since the late 80s.

On risks and shocks:

• The most frequently reported shock was drought then health issues such as cholera. After removing factors such as the LRA and rustling, crime was almost zero. Other shocks such as fires, widow evictions, etc. were not common.
• Households reported more shocks than community leaders. Shocks such as drought and LRA conflict were at the top of the list, followed by famine.

The risk of being orphaned was more likely in the Acholi and Lango regions. Overall abductions were rare.  In the Acholi region and IDP camps, it was the highest at 5%, but this percent was over the last 12 yrs. While the risk of occurrence may be small, people feared even the rare chance of it happening.

Cattle rustling and LRA attacks were less likely to happen to the poor than the rich. There isn’t a correlation between the event of rustling or attacks in the survey.

Risk of drought affected everyone universally.  But it would be more effective to gather scientific rainfall data rather than ask the qualitative question included in the survey:  not all droughts are equal.

Few households had a coping strategy or received help, despite the presence of aid. The sale of assets and borrowing was quite rare, even in the wake of shocks.

• Assistance was shock dependant, ex: if it was drought related, they received food, if an epidemic, they received health care, etc.. NGOs were the most effective at food delivery.  Medical care came mostly from the government. Cash came mainly from relatives.

Conclusions

The factors most important to poverty were geography and education, not vulnerability and shocks. This may be because there are social networks that provide help and reduce the shock, which have been in place for a long time or that the questions weren’t asked as they should have and thus didn’t address these factors.

But this means that policy preferences such as social safety nets should not be done to the exclusion of standard factors such as education and location.

Living standards are about consumption and expenditures, but other factors matter such as education, security and health.  But the impact of education is going to be when the kids now get surveyed as parents, not the current parents. Researchers need to be patient to see outcomes.

Q&A

Q: How big was the sample surveyed?
A: 20,000 people were surveyed from 5,000 households.

Q: Re sector impacts, does that reflect non-agriculture or agriculture work?
A: It included people in the fields of commerce, petty trading as well as teachers, etc. The ones involved in agriculture were the lowest and experienced the greatest impact.

Q: Is there masking of issues in some of the tables?
A: If you break out the data by region, rebels active in the Acholi region had higher death rates. Most people who died were infants, of disease. If you take a look at the data for adults, the majority of deaths were caused from old age. So disease is still more important than insecurity (except in the Acholi region).

Q: What are the fines and penalties you mentioned?
A: Uganda used to have a graduated tax, essentially a head tax, and if you didn’t pay they would impress you into service for a month or penalize you somehow. However there is almost no police presence there.

Q: Are people in camps engaging in normal economic activity?
A: They are, but this varies by camp. Some camps were set up in unpopulated areas, so people leave the camp during the day to work, like creating fields. Some camps are close enough to populated areas so people can trade at markets off camps.

Q: Is there any dynamic to cattle rustling?
A: Such as if there are organized groups? There wasn’t enough information, but informally people say that different groups are involved and it goes back and forth. Dr. Christopher Barrett, also of SAGA, has information on this.

Q: The main conclusion goes against normal perceptions and the questions have challenged that. Is it not such a surprising result?
A: However the evidence from standard factors came in very strong, such as where you live. Researchers are always trying to find new things but these factors will always matter. Also, the survey questions perhaps didn’t get at the concepts that interested us.

About Professor Steve Younger
Dr. Steve Younger is assistant director of Cornell University’s Food and Nutrition Program.  His expertise is in the area of development economics and poverty analysis, primarily in Africa. He has published extensively on these topics.

About the SAGA Cooperative Agreement
Strategies & Analysis for Growth & Access (SAGA) focuses on the capabilities of individuals, households, and communities—their productivities, their vulnerabilities, their institutions, and their environment. More information about SAGA may be found at www.saga.cornell.edu.
To access similar research and find out more about SAGA, go to: www.povertyfrontiers.org.