Civil Society Report On War is Sobering
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The Monitor (Kampala)
November 30, 2002
Posted to the web December 1, 2002
Kampala
The Civil Society Organisation for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU)
yesterday published in this paper its report titled: "Economic Cost of the
Conflict in Northern Uganda".
CSOPNU is a civil society group that brings together CARE International,
Uganda Child Rights NGO Network, Save the Children Denmark, Development
Network for Indigenous Voluntary Associations, NGO Forum, and Oxfam Great
Britain.
The report aims to spur efforts focussed on resolving the conflict peacefully
and permanently.
The full-page report said, as we have reported before, that the war costs at
least US$100m every year by conservative calculations. According to the
report, the government spends about US$95m (approximately Shs 170bn) on
health. The report concludes that the government, therefore, spends more
money on the useless war than it does on health, a vital social service.
More significant, however, is the report's projection about the plight of the
people now afflicted by the war.
The report also notes that the war has created a generation of
conflict-affected youngsters who will grow up emotionally, physically, and
economically blighted in displacement camps.
Over 500,000 people are displaced, mainly in camps.
Rates of sexually transmitted diseases are said to be the highest in the
country.
It says that even if peace were restored in the region, the lack of physical
assets and low levels of education and health will be an obstacle to
socio-economic revitalisation.
Government planners need to pay attention to these observations.
As the report notes optimistically, based on experience in Lango and Teso,
food sufficiency can be restored relatively quickly. Incomes in the region
can also grow quickly because of growing demand for tobacco and cotton, which
the sub-region produced previously.
However, the trauma of war, the missed education, the toll from HIV/AIDS,
rape, poor feeding, will linger on for much longer.
That is why the government needs to start planning for the long-lasting
impact of the war. But first, the war must end.
