By Sr. Agatha Namirembe.
The United Nations aim towards the SDGs agenda was to transform member countries into prosperous and conducive conditions for everyone. As a result a number of standards were agreed upon in 2015 in New York where leaders of 193 countries including Uganda signed over 15 sustainable development goals to be accomplished by 2030.
Unfortunately 8 years down the road Uganda has nothing tangable to show because the status co of ordinary Ugandans has remained the same.
Out of the seventeen goals signed I have chosen only – 4 which mainly concern the ordinary citizen in Uganda.
These are:-
Ending poverty and hunger.
Accessible healthcare for everyone
Clean safe water for everyone
Employment opportunities for everyone.
Ending poverty and hunger
Poverty and hunger are still prevalent among our people. This is mainly due to poor Government planning, corruption among some government officials.
Lack of support from government to assist farmers high taxation and poor infrastructure.
Accessibility of health care
This is a big problem specially in the rural area.
The existing health centres are empty there are no drugs. In most places people walk between 10 to 20km to access a health facility. This issue needs to be addressed by raising the health budget.
Clean safe water
In both urban and rural areas many people have no access to clean safe water, piped water is for only well to do people. The situation is worse in rural areas where people don’t have access to clean water. Many people share water with animals from rivers or dams.
Employment opportunities for everyone
The rate of un employment in Uganda is high again due to poor planning.
Lack of sufficient infrastructure, poor education policy (training job sickers instead of job creators) Lack of government support to boost both agriculture and farming.
What should be the solution?
In my view if citizens are to benefit from the SDGs the following should be done:-
Government should increase the budget on both health and agriculture.
Fight the notorious corruption among government officials.
Give physical support to the farmers both monitory and technical.
Improve the infrastructure.
Change the education policy (put emphasis on technical training)
Build more industries
Build more health centres and equip them with drugs.
Unless these Issues are addressed the SDGs is still a dream in Uganda■
About the Author
Ms Agatha Namirembe is Chairperson Uganda Public Employees Union (UPEU)
