The residents of Rupa sub County in Moroto districtPoverty rates in Karamoja continue to rise despite interventions by the government and development partners to enable it to catch up with other regions.Actors like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and others have long believed that by combating poverty and hunger within households, they can end or reduce poverty rates in the conflict-prone region.According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) for the 2023/24 National Household Survey Report, Karamoja’s poverty rate stands at 74.2 per cent, which is 4 times more than the national average despite a national decline in poverty to 16.1 per cent.Previous figures showed that the proportion of the population of Karamoja living in poverty had increased from 60.8 per cent in 2016/17 to 65.7 per cent in 2019/20, compared to the national average of 20.3 per cent. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) also stated that an estimated 84 per cent of young people in Karamoja were experiencing multi-dimensional poverty.The United Nations Development Programme office in Uganda in 2023 said economic regression, food insecurity, women and youth unemployment and inequality all resulted in the loss of lives and livelihoods in the subregion. “This has created challenges for the country’s development prospects and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in this United Nations Decade of Action,” said the report.Despite the efforts, some actors in the region are questioning the effectiveness of the billions of Shillings and other poverty alleviation efforts there.Ambrose Toolit, the Executive Director of Grassroots Alliance for Rural Development (GARD), told URN that though poverty under development in Karamoja has been attributed to conflict, it has experienced relative peace, but poverty levels remain high.Toolit estimates that Karamoja has received up to one trillion shillings from 10 international development donor partners through the central government, local government, the UN agencies, the international NGOs and local NGOs in the last ten years.He said a comparative analysis of the money injected into the region versus the real development exposes a big contrast.Toolit is of the view that most of the money towards Karamoja could be slipping through leakages like workshop and boardroom costs in the form of allowances or what he described as software.He notes that some of the government economic transformation projects have performed fairly well, but questions about value for money remain unanswered.Jonas Mbabazi, the Programs manager at The Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACCODE), said that the civil society has intervened in the matter to ensure that stakeholders account for the resources they invest in the region.Mbabazi emphasised the need to promote accountability for results in terms of services, livelihood and reduction of poverty levels within the region. He said that they are focused on strengthening the accountability mechanism, for the resource government and other stakeholders to invest in the region.The programs coordinator at Restless Development Uganda, Henry Napakol, agreed that the resources injected in the region have not positively impacted the community.Napakol explained that part of the reason why the money has gone to waste is the lack of demand for accountability. He said the local people do not understand the activities and investments offered for their transformation.Napakol is of the view that several projects have failed to register positive results because the community is excluded from the planning and suggestions for the projects that work best for them.The Programs Manager at RiamRiam Civil Society Network, Dorcus Angom, attributed the recycling poverty to the mindset of having a feeling of using money to use money.Angom noted that the local people do not have that feeling to commit them to work for the future, but rather something that can be consumed in one day. She observed that most of the Karamojong people employed in formal or non-formal jobs always prefer spending their salaries until it is finished before reporting back for work.Angom noted that such a mindset has locked most youth out of the job market from the various projects aimed at transforming the region, and this leaves the majority to live in extreme poverty.She reiterated that the cycle of poverty has persisted because the community does not want to invest, but instead survives from hand to mouth as life moves on.She also cited an example of Karamojong elites employed in the civil society organisations for many years with good salary scales, but failed to economically transform.The Executive Director of Karamoja Anti-Corruption Coalition, Dr Ayub Mukisa said told URN that the money allocated to the civil society to run the project is very little compared to the funding injected in the government project.He attributed the failure of various projects in the region to low levels of monitoring and the fears instilled in people about the security threats in the region. Mukisa urged both the government and the development partners to come together to form a community monitoring system to track where the money is injected.He is optimistic that Karamoja will soon realise the better results out of the resources injected in the region and social service delivery through the frequent monitoring of the project implementations.Mukisa said that they have introduced a system called the citizen feedback platform installed in the phones to enable the community to report the progress and functionality of the projects in their various locations.Simon Nangiro, the chairperson of Karamoja Elders Association, wondered why several accountability bodies have been assessing the project implementations but failed to track how the resources are being spent.Nangiro said that the region has always been used as a laughing stock and a haven for people stealing funds from the government in the name of poverty alleviation. Nangiro noted that the system has crafted itself to create an accountability mechanism, yet the money goes back to its source. He said that the government should fall back on the moral questions and consider transparency on their projects they intend to support the community.The Minister for Karamoja Affairs, Simon Peter Lokeris, told URN that the region is gradually transforming through the collaborative efforts of government and development partners.Lokeris lauded the development partners for their interventions to improve the areas of health, education, food security, peace building and poverty alleviation programs that have boosted the economy in the region. He said that the partners have greatly supported the areas of education and water facilities in the most vulnerable areas.Lokeris said that the communities are now empowered, citing the women whose voices have been amplified and can now sustain their families. He stressed that the transformation in the region is a gradual process and the communities are already feeling the positive impact.The 2016 Donor mapping report compiled by the USAID-supported Karamoja Resilience Unit (KRSU) on the 10 donors, which include, United Kingdom, USAID, World Bank, Irish Aid, SIDA (Sweden), EU, Germany, Japan, KOICA (Korea) and Italy, provided a significant majority of the external funds flows to Karamoja.The funds were channeled through local and central Government, UN agencies and Civil Society organisations. Other external funds flow to Karamoja include those from foundations such as the MasterCard Foundation and own funding from UN agencies and CSOs.It is estimated that the donors released approximately 380 billion Shillings in 2017 to support the development activities in the region. The report further stated that in 2022, another 270 million Shillings were injected in the region for food aid, education, livelihoods, health, and infrastructure, among others.The majority of the projects are aligned to Strategic Objective 3 of the Karamoja Integrated Development Plan (KIDP), which focuses on basic social services and the Strategic Objective which addresses protection, food and nutrition security.On the other hand, the government has equally pumped a lot of funds into the projects aimed at addressing the challenges in the region. For instance, the Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP) received 4.78 billion Shillings, but over half of the funds have not been recovered.The Parish Development Model (PDM) has also faced challenges as the implementation stands at only 15 per cent, with beneficiaries struggling to access funds due to poor sensitisation on the program’s purpose, among others.Grow project, similarly faced the obstacle as many women in the region failed to access the eight hundred and thirteen billion funds due to the lack of collateral, such as land titles, formal enterprises, among others.However, despite these efforts, Karamoja continues to struggle with several challenges, among which include the high poverty rates accompanied by food insecurity, raising questions about why the poverty has persisted in the region.-URNThe post Karamoja Plunges Further Into Poverty Despite Billions Spent appeared first on Business Focus.