Exclusive: Uganda Scores Poorly on Human Rights

By Joseph Elunya

joseph@tciju.org

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative-HRMI has called upon the Ugandan government to urgently improve people’s lives

The call is contained in a report that is to be released shortly by the Human Rights Measurement Initiative. The HRMI is the first global project to track the human rights performance of countries. Its 2020 Human Rights Country Reports give human rights scores on up to 13 different human rights contained in United Nations treaties, for over 200 countries.

For Uganda, HRMI so far produces scores for five economic and social rights: the rights to education, food, health, housing, and work, taking Uganda’s income into account in calculating the scores.

HRMI spokesperson Thalia Kehoe Rowden said, “Uganda‘s worst human rights score was for the right to housing, where Uganda is only doing 16.3% of what we calculate is possible at its level of income. Uganda‘s score for the right to housing is the third worst in sub-Saharan Africa, ahead only of Chad and South Sudan”.

“The right to housing score for Uganda is calculated by comparing the proportion of the population who have basic sanitation and safe water in their homes, to the best result of any other country with the same level of income” said Thalia Kehoe Rowden.

Here’s a link to an exclusive interview that CIJU had with her   https://youtu.be/ajgFp-GfOXA

Rowden said they produce scores for Uganda on five economic and social rights: the rights to food, education, health, housing, and work/income.

She notes that, unfortunately, all five of Uganda‘s scores fall into the ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ ranges, showing that there is urgent need for improvement in how the Uganda government uses its resources to ensure all people have the best possible quality of life, given the country’s limited income.’

Meanwhile, Uganda‘s best score was for the right to food, where Uganda is doing only 78.2% of what is realistically possible at its level of income. But the good news is that this is a significant improvement. Over 10 years Uganda‘s right to food score has risen from around 66.1% to the current 78.2%.’

Right to health shows significant improvement

HRMI spokesperson said, ‘The biggest improvement over ten years is in the right to health, where Uganda‘s score has risen from 54.9% in 2007 to 74.9% in 2017 (the most recent data supplied to international databases).

‘Every country should be able to get close to its 100% target. Uganda has some way to go to meet its people’s right to health.’ said Rowden

For all of these rights, Uganda has a long way to go to meet its people’s rights under international human rights law.