By Peter Eceru
Africa-Press – Uganda. July, 2025 marks the beginning of Uganda’s fourth National Development Plan (NDP). NDP IV is Uganda’s strategic blueprint for socio-economic transformation, aiming to achieve higher household incomes, a fully monetized economy, and increased employment.
It’s the fourth in a series of six NDPs designed to realize Uganda’s Vision 2040.
As we been this journey of the next 5 years we need to strongly position nutrition as a key pillar in this growth trajectory.
Malnutrition perpetuates the cycle of poverty. It retards the development of nations andprevents more equal world by hindering people’s development and potential.
Malnutrition affects brain development, education attainment and people long term health- imposing huge costs at both individual and national levels.
Under nutrition costs up to 16.5% of Gross Domestic Product across Africa.
If Uganda is to feed itself, it needs not only to increase the amount of food it produces, but also improve the quality in order to counter persistently high levels of malnutrition. Lessons must be learntfrom those that have made progress.
Uganda faces significant challenges in addressing malnutrition, with 41% of the population undernourished and 26% of children under five years stunted.
While the government has made strides in addressing poverty and vulnerability, malnutrition remains a concern, particularly among refugees, host communities and Karamoja region.
One in four children in Uganda are stunted, an irreversible condition caused by malnutrition, half of children under five and one-quarter of child-bearing-age women are anemic, 66% of primary and secondary school children lack access to school meals and are at risk of acute food insecurity.
These high levels of malnutrition is driven by a number of factors including conflicts which disrupt food production and supply chains; climate change related factors which affect crop yields; poverty and economic inequality and dietary deficiencies.
A weak public health system exacerbates the situation through limited access to health care and child maternal health services
The implementation of the German Federal Foreign Office supported project in Adjumani and Kiryandongo offers lessons which we can escalate in the implementation of NDP IV.
It demonstrated the importance of a well-coordinated multi sectoral collaboration in the fight against Malnutrition.
Access to healthcare and WASH services are critical in driving down malnutrition.
When people get regular access to basic healthcare, early signs of malnutrition can be easily detected and responded to.
This calls for strengthening primary health caresystem, with robust community outreaches especially in cases of hard to reach areas and communities and strong referral system.
The adoption of approaches like Management of Small and nutritionally at Risk Infants (MAMI), daily health and nutrition education and Infant and child feeding counselling can have huge impact.
There is need to move beyond rhetoric, by adopting and implementing long-term nutrition action plans, and by developing an approach that engages multiple ministries and other actors at national level and multi- department at local government level.
Health, agriculture, and rural development ministries all have a stake in food and nutrition issues but rarely have the platform to meaningfully cooperate.
Capturing synergies between agriculture, water, health, and sanitation is essential for a holistic approach to ending malnutrition.
This multi sectoral approach requires investment in coordination and nutrition governance.
This will ensure cost effective, coordinated, efficient and effective action against malnutrition. Currently, nutrition governance receives minimal investment.
We need to adopt proactive food and nutrition planning Instead of reacting to emergencies.
Uganda should prioritize long-term planning to anticipate and prevent food crises before they occur.
This involves strengthening food and social protection systems, promoting local food production, and fortifying staple food.
Making nutritious food readily available is essential. Anemia levels remains high at 53% in children between 6-59 months and 32% among women of reproductive age.
This is largely on account of nutritional deficiencies. This can be reversed through simple approaches like Optimized Land Use Management, where families utilize the limited land around their home or houses to produce nutritional rich foods for the family.
Interventions like bio fortification of drinking water and sanitation.
The role of the private sector needs to be amplified. Public-private partnerships and collaboration with civil society organizations are necessary to achieve nutrition targets.
Sharing knowledge and resources across entities can be highly effective.
It’s also important to critically think about Gender while fighting malnutrition.
Empowering women and their groups is vital, as they often play a key role in family nutrition and food security.
We need to recognize that the foundation of a nation’s prosperity lies in the health and well-being of its people.
Nutrition, often overlooked, is a critical component of this foundation, and its impact on human capital development cannot be overstated.
The Writer Works with Action Against Hunger
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