Publication Details

Championing policy engagement on chronic poverty and social protection in Uganda

experiences from development research and training (DRT)

Paul Onapa
2010

Abstract

Influencing change in policy and practice on chronic poverty and social protection in Uganda like in any other country is neither an easy task nor does it follow a straight path. The assumption that policy advocacy automatically translates into policy changes needs a careful interrogation. Experience from DRT’s work in influencing chronic poverty and social protection program and policy response over the past decade indicates that policy makers are often very selective in the kind of information and direction they take on a given matter. Three key factors have provided both the direction/opportunity as well as the challenge for DRT in its work on chronic poverty and social protection in Uganda. These included; engaging with politics, elite attitudes and the knowledge gap. Interest in chronic poverty and social protection is rising and gaining a lot of importance in the design and implementation of programs to reduce poverty. It is in fact admirable that analysis of poverty is disaggregated to specifically capture chronic poverty (how many people are trapped in it and who they are). The National Development Plan has been recently launched and it draws good analysis on chronic poverty and responses to address it including among others social protection. For over a decade, Uganda has been implementing some programs to tackle poverty and vulnerability. Most of these have been on a very small scale, scattered and often uncoordinated. Over the past few years, there has been evidence of increased knowledge and interest generating discussions on responding to chronic poverty, targeting, universality and inclusion of policies and programs in particular relation to chronic poverty. This paper attempts to document DRT’s experience in contributing to generating interest, understanding and debate on influencing adoption of specific policy and program responses to address chronic poverty in Uganda and beyond over the past 10 years.

Publication Type(s)

Conference Paper

Ten Years of War Against Poverty Conference Papers

Conference: Ten Years of War Against Poverty

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