KCCA AND WFP SIGN AGREEMENT TO ADDRESS FOOD INSECURITY IN KAMPALA

PUBLISHED — 18th, October 2018

KAMPALA – Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today entered a partnership to work on joint capacity strengthening in urban food security and vulnerability assessments, and in strategic design and implementation of appropriate urban food security and nutrition interventions.

KCCA’s Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi and WFP’s Country Director, El Khidir Daloum, signed the partnership agreement at the City Hall, announcing that the two parties were already undertaking a ground-breaking survey through the Makerere University School of Public Health, to investigate the nature and magnitude

 insecurity and rising rates of malnutrition.

Musisi said, “Many people are arriving in the city to look for work and finding themselves squeezed into settlements where basic social services are limited, sanitation is poor and, as result, their children are prone to infections and ill health. Moreover, these same households can hardly afford regular healthy diets.”

The study will investigate how poverty and rapid urbanization are impacting on food security and all forms of malnutrition among the poor, as well as the well-off households in Kampala who are increasingly faced with obesity or over-nutrition.

 

“This is exactly what we were looking for,” Musisi said, “scientific evidence that would guide our assistance to vulnerable households and our city strategic plan overall. We approached WFP, aware of its expertise in conducting comprehensive food security assessments around the world, and most recently in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Philippines capital, Manila.”

The local Ambassador for Sustainable Development Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), the Executive Director said the new partnership will contribute to achieving Goal 11 and three others, namely, End poverty in all its forms everywhere (Goal 1), Zero Hunger (Goal 2), and Partnerships for the Goals (Goal 17).

Our new partnership with KCCA, Daloum said, is extremely important as it has pushed WFP into new territory for Zero Hunger and in supporting the Government of Uganda to achieve its development priorities.

“Kampala city generates 60 percent of Uganda’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP),” Daloum said. “As we assist Uganda to achieve sustainable development, we know we must actively engage beyond Uganda’s traditional hunger hotspots.”

The National Demographic and Health Survey, 2016 found that rates of chronic malnutrition or stunted growth among children aged under five in Kampala district rose from 13.5 in 2011 to 18 percent. In one of the traditional hunger hotspots, Karamoja, meanwhile, WFP contributed to levels that reduced by nearly 10 percentage points during the same period.

The National Zero Hunger Strategic Review, 2017 also found evidence of food insecurity and rising levels of malnutrition in the city. It noted that 21 percent of Ugandans live in urban areas up from 12 percent in 2002.

Results of the joint comprehensive study, will guide KCCA and WFP to jointly plan and assist people in both poor and upscale neighbourhoods in line with KCCA’s vision of improved access to safe and affordable housing and upgraded slums.

 

For more information please contact

+256(0)794 660 003 | pkaujju@kcca.go.ug | @KCCAUG across Social Media.



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