A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE CAUSES OF HOUSEHOLD POVERTY IN BUSHENYI AND KAMULI DISTRICTS:AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
By Gumoshabe Gilbert BA (MAK) MA (MAK)
Abstract
The research sought to investigate and identify the causes of household poverty in Bushenyi and Kamuli Districts and to evaluate the poverty reduction programs that have been operational between 1987 and 2010. The study also sought to establish people’s perceptions with regard to household poverty.
The study was guided by four specific objectives: to investigate people’s perceptions towards household poverty in Bushenyi and Kamuli districts; investigate the socio-cultural factors that cause and perpetuate household poverty; examine the viability of Government interventions for purposes of reducing persistent household poverty and to propose possible solutions that aim at eliminating persistent household poverty in the selected districts.
The topic was chosen because household poverty has been on the increase in Uganda for some time. Although a number of poverty reduction programs have been running since 1987, some have been abandoned without achieving significant results.
Available studies attribute household poverty to be an economic problem and all solutions prescribed to reduce poverty have been economic in nature. The economic solutions that have been abandoned comprise Progressive Farmers Loan Scheme, Entandikwa Credit Scheme, Cooperative Credit Scheme, Rural Farmers Scheme, Poverty Eradication Action Plan while the programs, which are running include Plan for Modernization of Agriculture, Prosperity For All, and National Agricultural Advisory Services. Despite this diversity of programs, poverty levels continue to rise. With the increase in levels despite of economic interventions, it necessitated a different approach to establish the causes of household poverty. Thus, an anthropological approach was used with the primary aim of investigating socio-cultural factors.
This research established that household poverty is known to and has been experienced by the poor themselves, and constituted 81% of the household respondents. The poor people’s perception of household poverty was described as a situation whereby a household is unable to partially or fully afford what a community considers to be the basic needs for a household. These include inability to provide food, a reasonable shelter, clothing, educational needs, health care and contributions to community needs.
While household poverty had been conceptualized as an economic problem, the study findings indicate that household poverty is also caused by socio-cultural factors that are associated with value systems, beliefs, attitudes, and mind-set. The socio-cultural factors are polygyny and early marriages which result into large families. Other factors are socialization, land ownership, attitude towards work, alcohol consumption, belief in witchcraft, fatalism and predestination and ill-health.
The causes of household poverty in Bushenyi district are not significantly different from those in Kamuli district except when it comes to polygyny, which is not widely practised in Bushenyi. It occurs among a few rich people and those forced into, for example, men who impregnate girls when they are already married. The other major difference is the magnitude of negative attitude towards work. Poor households in Bushenyi district have work to do to earn an income as compared to Kamuli district where there are limited opportunities.
This study evaluated the government intervention programs that were put in place to reduce household poverty between 1987 and 2010. As noted earlier, the abandoning of government programs is attributed to the fact that people do not participate in the design and running of the programs. The are simply imposed on them to implement. For example, programs which are related to credit financing were used to satisfy the people’s immediate needs instead of using credit money to improve their livelihoods. Other programs that aim at improving livelihood through agriculture have always underestimated the role of socio-cultural factors in the production relations. Free education, which improves the chances of better living conditions is experiencing a high drop-out rate while poor people have no shame in referring to themselves as poor as if being poor is a life-time achievement.
This research concludes that in order to resolve the problem of household poverty, the poor themselves have to be involved in the process of solving their own problem. Any solution to household poverty needs to mobilize the poor to utilise all their existing resources and only seek government support as a supplementary effort in aspects that are beyond their reach.
The findings propose that the poor themselves should be incorporated in identifying their felt needs and be helped where necessary to meet those needs. The study recommends the Community Development model which would empower the poor households to initiate programs that can get them out of poverty by participating in the planning process. The poor would set objectives to achieve; put in place a roadmap and a structure to enforce accountability and demand for government support using the community leaders as their torch bearers. This would make the programs people-centred, and thus be effectively managed. The study also recommends that the existing government poverty reduction programs should be redesigned and refocused by integrating socio-cultural aspects.