By Mulengera Reporters
On Thursday, delegations from Lango Cultural Institution (aka Won Nyaci me Lango) and Iteso Cultural Union (ICU) were hosted to Statistics House in Kampala, which is also the headquarters of Uganda Bureau of Statistics. The two delegations were led by Prof Willy Okullo (Prime Minister) and John Okiror, the Deputy Prime Minister/Lands Minister respectively.
They were here to formally sign two separate MoUs formalizing collaboration between them on one hand and UBOS on the other, regarding the collaborative production and development of official statistics. To receive them at Statistics House was the UBOS Deputy ED Dr. Vincent Fred Sennono, who represented his boss Dr. Chris N Mukiza at the MoUs-signing ceremony.
In 2024, when the population & housing census results were released, misunderstandings arose when the Emorimor leadership of Iteso Cultural Institution (ICU) raised a red flag controversially claiming that people living in their geographical area had been undercounted.
But harmonization was eventually achieved through the UBOS management explaining the procedures, processes and methodologies that had been followed to ensure credibility for the census results, in compliance with international standards. Since that time, there has been productive engagements between UBOS and ICU whose top leadership gradually realized the need to find common ground and have a formal relationship that can be mutually beneficial.
It was made clear during those preceding engagements that Uganda’s official statistics, as produced by UBOS, can among other things enable cultural institutions’ leaders to engage in meaningful advocacy, resource allocation and policy formulation debates in their respective interactions with the central government.
For instance, its much easier for a given cultural institution to successfully engage government and persuasively make a case on the need to design impactful policy interventions mitigating against youth unemployment, domestic violence against women & children, inadequate access to health and education services in their respective geographical regions once the official government statistics, as produced by UBOS, are relied upon and referenced during such discussions. It was agreed that statistics committees, available in every statistical region of Uganda, be taken advantage of while operationalizing these newly-signed MoUs.
Under the MoU terms, UBOS also hopes to benefit from the fact that cultural institutions have physical proximity and have a lot of influence on community members in their respective regions. And this can be leveraged to get Ugandans across the country to widely embrace, cooperate and participate in regular surveys that UBOS keeps carrying out to generate official statistics for the country, from time to time.
In his speech, that was read for him by Dr. Sennono, Mukiza made reference to the Education Baseline Survey, which is ongoing. Cultural institutions leaders were urged to emulate the great Kingdoms of Buganda and Rwenzururu, which signed MoUs and entered formal collaboration with UBOS much earlier on, and begin to believe in official statistics as opposed to arguing and making public pronouncements based on mere sentiments.
The Inter-Religious Council of Uganda equally has similar MoU with UBOS and the outcomes have been beneficial to the two institutions; it was emphasized during the Thursday MoUs’ signing ceremony.
“Statistics is key because it’s the only way through which you measure development and indicators on poverty levels, access to education and health services are the only way you can authoritatively talk about the levels of development in your areas of jurisdiction,” the ED’s speech read in part.
The cultural institutions’ leaders were told they are very important people who can’t afford to diminish their reputation in society by making public pronouncements based on mere sentiments, and which contradict the official government statistics whose production and development is the primary mandate of UBOS.
Dr. Mukiza also called upon leaders of the two cultural institutions to walk the talk and demonstrate commitment to the terms therein, so that the MoUs their representatives have signed can have impact and lead to desired outcomes.
Dr. Mukiza also explained how and why data collection is a very expensive undertaking and went on to demonstrate how partnering with cultural institutions, which gratefully already have good relations with districts and cities’ local governments in the respective geographical/statistical regions, can help to bring down the costs involved in data collection, production and development.
He made specific reference to administrative statistics (such as the number of primary schools and health facilities or even factories in a given cultural region) as some of the data that can safely be obtained from a given cultural institution so that the Bureau doesn’t have to spend money and time deploying data collectors to go to the field to gather such information.
The two cultural institutions’ representatives promised full cooperation with the Bureau, as mandated under the respective MoUs, and also thanked the UBOS top leadership for the enthusiasm with which they accepted their respective requests to collaborate from the very beginning.
What remains now is the operationalization of the MoUs’ terms, something UBOS officials will be spearheading while leveraging the statistics committees which are supposed to exist in all Uganda’s statistical regions. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
