Overview

Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a country in East Africa, bordered on the east by Kenya, the north by Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the southwest by UGANDA, and on the south by Tanzania. The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, within which it shares borders with Kenya and Tanzania. The country is located on the East African plateau, averaging about 900 meters (2,950 ft) above sea level.

Sources:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda
BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1069166.stm
The World Bank: http://www.worldbank.org/

Short History

Uganda became an independent nation in 1962, with Edward Muteesa II, the Kabka (King) of Buganda as the President and Commander in Chief of the armed forces, and Milton Obote as Prime Minister. In 1966, Obote overthrew the constitution and declared himself president, ushering in an era of coups and counter-coups which would last until the mid-1980s. Obote was deposed twice from office, both times by military coup d'état. Idi Amin took power in 1971, ruling the country with the military for the coming decade. Idi Amin's rule cost an estimated 300,000 Ugandans' lives. He forcibly removed the entrepreneurial Indian minority from Uganda, decimating the economy. His reign was ended after the Uganda-Tanzania War in 1979 in which Tanzanian forces aided by Ugandan exiles invaded Uganda.

This led to the return of Obote, who was deposed once more in 1985 by General Tito Okello. Okello ruled for six months until he was deposed after the so called "bush war" by the National Resistance Army (NRM) operating under the leadership of the current president, Yoweri Museveni. Museveni has been in power since. In the mid to late 1990s, he was lauded by the West as part of a new generation of African leaders. His presidency has been fouled, however, by involvement in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and other conflicts in the Great Lakes region, as well as the civil war against the Lord's Resistance Army.

Sources:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda
BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1069166.stm
The World Bank: http://www.worldbank.org/

Economy

Uganda has substantial natural resources, including fertile soils, regular rainfall, and sizable mineral deposits of copper and cobalt. Agriculture is the most important sector of the economy, employing over 80% of the work force, with coffee accounting for the bulk of export revenues. Since 1986, the government (with the support of foreign countries and international agencies) has acted to rehabilitate an economy decimated during the regime of Idi Amin and subsequent civil war.

During 1990-2001, the economy turned in a solid performance based on continued investment in the rehabilitation of infrastructure, improved incentives for production and exports, reduced inflation, gradually improved domestic security, and the return of exiled Indian-Ugandan entrepreneurs. Ongoing Ugandan involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, corruption within the government, and slippage in the government's determination to press reforms raise doubts about the continuation of strong growth.

In 2000, Uganda qualified for the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief initiative worth $1.3 billion and Paris Club debt relief worth $145 million. These amounts combined with the original HIPC debt relief added up to about $2 billion. Growth for 2001-02 was solid despite continued decline in the price of coffee, Uganda's principal export. According to IMF statistics, in 2004 Uganda's GDP per-capita reached 300 dollars, a much higher level than in the Eighties but still at half of Sub-Saharan African average income of 600 dollars per year. Total GDP crossed the 8 billion dollar mark in the same year.

Sources:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda
BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1069166.stm
The World Bank: http://www.worldbank.org/

Culture

Situated at the geographical heart of the African continent, Uganda has long been a cultural melting pot, as evidenced by the 30-plus different indigenous languages belonging to five distinct linguistic groups, and an equally diverse cultural mosaic of music, art and handicrafts. The country’s most ancient inhabitants, confined to the hilly southwest, are the Batwa and Bambuti Pygmies, relics of the hunter-gatherer cultures that once occupied much of East Africa to leave behind a rich legacy of rock paintings, such as those at the Nyero Rock Shelter near Kumi.

At the cultural core of modern-day Uganda lie the Bantu-speaking kingdoms of Buganda, Bunyoro, Ankole and Toro, whose traditional monarchs – reinstated in the 1990s after having been abolished by President Milton Obote in 1967 – still serve as important cultural figureheads. According to oral tradition, these centuries-old kingdoms are offshoots of the mediaeval kingdoms of Batembuzi and Bacwezi, which lay in the vicinity of present-day Mubende and Ntusi, where archaeological evidence suggests that a strongly centralized polity had emerged by the 11th century. Three former kings of Buganda are buried in an impressive traditional thatched building at the Kasubi Tombs in Kampala.

Elsewhere, Uganda’s cultural diversity is boosted in the northeast by the presence of the Karimojong, traditional pastoralists whose lifestyle and culture is reminiscent of the renowned Maasai, and in the northwest by a patchwork of agricultural peoples whose Nilotic languages and cultures are rooted in what is now Sudan. The Rwenzori foothills are home to the hardy Bakonjo, whose hunting shrines are dedicated to a one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed pipe-smoking spirit known as Kalisa, while the Bagisu of the Mount Elgon region are known for their colorful Imbalu ceremony, an individual initiation of young boys to manhood that peaks in activity in and around August of every even numbered year.

Tourism

Tourism Uganda – http://www.visituganda.com/home.html

From the moment you land at Entebbe’s modern and efficient international airport, with its breathtaking equatorial location on the forested shore of island-strewn Lake Victoria, it is clear that Uganda is no ordinary safari destination. Dominated by an expansive golf course leading down to the lakeshore, and a century-old botanical garden alive with the chatter of acrobatic monkeys and colorful tropical birds, Entebbe itself is the least obviously urban of all comparably sized African towns. Then, just 40km distant, sprawled across seven hills, there is the capital Kampala. The bright modern feel of this bustling, cosmopolitan city reflects the ongoing economic growth and political stability that has characterized Uganda since 1986, and is complemented by the sloping spaciousness and runaway greenery of its garden setting.

Ecologically, Uganda is where the East African savannah meets the West African jungle. Where else but in this impossibly lush country can one observe lions prowling the open plains in the morning and track chimpanzees through the rainforest undergrowth the same afternoon, then the next day navigate tropical channels teeming with hippo and crocs before setting off into the misty mountains to stare deep into the eyes of a mountain gorilla? Certainly, Uganda is the only safari destination whose range of forest primates is as impressive as its selection of plains antelope. And this verdant biodiversity is further attested to by Uganda’s status as by far the smallest of the four African countries whose bird checklist tops the 1,000 mark!

Yet there is more to the country than wildlife – far more! There is the mighty Nile, punctuated by the spectacular Murchison Falls, and the setting for some of the world’s most thrilling commercial white-water rafting. There are the snow-capped peaks of the Rwenzori, which provide a tantalizing challenge to dedicated mountaineers, as well as the Virunga Volcanoes and Mount Elgon, both of which offer highly rewarding hiking opportunities through scintillating highland scenery. More sedately, the myriad islands of Lake Victoria and Bunyonyi are idyllic venues, as are the myriad forest-fringed crater lakes that stud the rift valley floor and escarpment around Fort Portal. Whether you’re a first time safari-goer or a seasoned African traveler, Uganda – with its unique blend of savannah and forest creatures, its rare wealth of mountains and lake habitats – is simply dazzling.

HIV/AIDS

Uganda has been hailed as a rare success story in the fight against HIV and AIDS, widely being viewed as the most effective national response to the pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. President Museveni established the AIDS Control Program (ACP) within the Ministry of Health (MOH) to create policy guidelines for Uganda’s fight against HIV/AIDS. Uganda quickly realized that HIV/AIDS was more than a ‘health’ issue and in 1992 created a “Multi-sectoral AIDS Control Approach.” In addition, the Uganda AIDS Commission, also founded in 1992, has been instrumental in developing a national HIV/AIDS policy. A variety of approaches to AIDS education have been employed, ranging from the promotion of condom use to 'abstinence only' programs.

To further Uganda's efforts in establishing a comprehensive HIV/AIDS program, in 2000 the MOH birth practices and safe infant feeding counseling. According to the WHO, around 41,000 women received PMTCT services in 2001. Uganda was the first country to open a VCT clinic in Africa and pioneered the concept of voluntary HIV testing centers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The scope of Uganda's success has come under scrutiny from new research. Research published in The Lancet medical journal in 2002 questions the dramatic decline reported. It is claimed statistics have been distorted through the inaccurate extrapolation of data from small urban clinics to the entire population, nearly 90 per cent of whom live in rural areas. Also, recent trials of the HIV drug nevirapine have come under intense scrutiny and criticism.

Most of the women who suffer from HIV/AIDS are in the prime of their productive lives. Simply being identified as HIV positive may result in discrimination, gender-based violence, unemployment, abandonment or the loss of other human rights and freedoms. The feminization of the epidemic brings into sharp relief the inequalities that shape people's behavior and limit the options women have to protect themselves. Many women are very vulnerable to HIV even though they do not practice high-risk behavior. In some places, marriage itself is a risk factor.

In Uganda, information on HIV prevalence among antenatal clinic (ANC) attendees is available on an annual basis since 1985, for Kampala, the major urban area. HIV prevalence among ANC women tested there increased from 11 percent in 1985 to 31 percent in 1990. Beginning in 1993, however, HIV prevalence among ANC women began to decline in Kampala reaching 8.3 percent in 2002. HIV prevalence by age is available since 1990. In 1991, 28 percent of ANC women tested who were less than 20 years of age were HIV positive. This rate declined to 6 percent in 2001. Sentinel surveillance of ANC attendees outside of Kampala began in 1989. Median HIV prevalence declined from 13 percent of ANC women tested in 1992 to 4.7 percent in 2002. In a decade, from 1989 to 1999, reported HIV prevalence among STI clinic patients in Kampala decreased from a median of 52 percent to 23 percent. In 2000 and 2001, HIV prevalence among STI clinic patients was just over 20 percent. Results of HIV testing among male STI clinic patients in Kampala showed a decrease from 42 percent in 1989 to 34 percent in 1995. Among female STI clinic patients, reported HIV prevalence also decreased, from 62 percent in 1989 to 37 percent in 1997.

Sources:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda
UNFPA: http://www.unfpa.org/hiv/
UNAIDS: http://www.unaids.org/en/GetStarted/Women.asp
The World Bank: http://www.worldbank.org/