Kotome Primary School, Kaabong District. Monday.
Sacks of maize flour and beans were offloaded to applause. Ministers stood in line. The message was clear: “You voted for NRM, we will not let you die of hunger.”
Over 9.4 million kilograms of relief has been dispatched. Worth Shs 45 billion. Enough for 314,000 households across nine districts. 10kg of beans. 20kg of posho. For two months.
The Church of Uganda has also launched an emergency appeal. Target: 41,000 people in eight districts. Deadline: 3rd August 2026. “We are called to bear one another’s burdens.”
The trucks came. The food came. The photos came.
And Karamoja is still the same place it was after the last trucks left.
The Rescue We All Agree On
Let’s start with gratitude. Hunger kills fast. When a child is fainting in Lopedo, posho today is not politics. It is life.
Minister Sam Engola was right to say corruption must be zero. UPDF and Prisons handling logistics is meant to guard against the sacks “disappearing” like they did in past scandals. WFP coming in with another consignment matters.
And the Church stepping in matters too. Because government cannot, and should not, be the only one carrying 41,000 desperate families.
This is the Uganda we want: government, church, partners, all moving food to people.
But we have to ask the harder question while the trucks are still moving.
The Math That Doesn’t Add Up
2 months of food.
9 districts.
Mineral-rich land.
Decades of interventions.
Karamoja has gold, limestone, marble. It has sun 300 days a year. It has cattle, culture, and resilience. What it does not have is water when it matters, and a way to turn that sun into food instead of dust.
So every dry season, we do this dance.
Drought comes. Cabinet meets. Trucks roll. Photos are taken. 60 days pass. Hunger returns.
That is not a relief plan. That is a subscription to famine.
The Ordinary Karamoja View: “Give Us Tools, Not Just Food”
Talk to a elder in Lodiko Sub-county and he will tell you: “We are not lazy. We are tired of waiting for rain.”
What they are asking for is not complicated:
1. Water: Small-scale irrigation. Valley dams. Solar boreholes. You cannot grow maize on hope.
2. Markets: Better roads from Kaabong to Moroto to Mbale. Right now it’s cheaper to import maize from Kenya than to move it 80km inside Karamoja.
3. Money: Low-interest loans to buy goats, start grinding mills, or buy irrigation pumps. Not handouts. Capital.
4. Skills: Training in dryland farming, food storage, and business. And schools that teach children how to farm without waiting for rain.
The Elite Uganda View: “This Is A Policy Failure, Not Just A Weather Problem”*
For the investor, the planner, the donor in Kampala: Karamoja is a case study in what happens when we treat symptoms and ignore systems.
5. Land: Much of Karamoja’s potential is locked in communal land tenure and conflict over mining. Locals watch trucks carry minerals out, but see nothing come back in as boreholes or clinics.
6. Infrastructure: You can’t run irrigation without power. You can’t sell produce without roads. You can’t store grain without silos. We spend Shs 45 billion on 2 months of food. A fraction of that in dams and roads would buy us 10 years of food.
7. Tax and Credit: Farmers need tax holidays on inputs. They need banks willing to lend for a drip kit, not just for a boda.
Accountability: The Minister said “free of corruption.” Good. But we need public dashboards. Which sub-county got how many kgs? Who signed? Who delivered? Sunlight is the best preservative for both food and trust.
So What Is The Best Solution?
It’s not one thing. It’s a shift from “relief” to “resilience.”
Here is the 4-part deal Karamoja deserves:
1. Water First
Government + partners should pivot 30% of the relief budget into irrigation infrastructure every year. Solar-powered schemes, valley tanks, sand dams. If Israel can farm in the desert, Karamoja can farm in July.
2. Jobs Over Dependence
Mining revenue must stay in Karamoja. Ring-fence it. Use it for vocational schools, agro-processing plants, and cold storage. A young man with a job welding in Moroto will not raid cattle in Kotome.
3. Market Logic
Tax holidays on farm inputs. Guaranteed government purchase of Karamoja sorghum and beans for school feeding. Build the road, and the market will do the rest.
4. Education That Fits The Land
Reform curriculum in Karamoja to teach dryland agriculture, animal husbandry, water management, and entrepreneurship. We need engineers of drought, not just victims of it.
Conclusion: Day 61
The posho will finish. The beans will finish.
On day 61, a mother in Teuso will wake up and the sack will be empty.
What will be there?
Another truck? Or a tap with water, a road to market, a child in school learning how to grow food without rain?
We can clap for the relief. We must.
But we must also be angry that we are still clapping for the same relief, in the same place, for the same reason.
Karamoja does not need our pity every dry season.
It needs our plan for every season.
Because bearing one another’s burdens means more than carrying a sack.
It means making sure the sack is never needed again.
