Former President Apollo Milton Obote is famously quoted in the Uganda Gazette of 1963 to have said “we shall not wait for Karamoja to develop,” following a visit to the sub-region to the north east, then as the least developed in the country, one year after Independence. Sixty one years later, a lot has changed but the semi-arid region still lags behind in many social and economic indicators, and with at least 1.2 million living in poverty according to the 2016/2017 National Household Survey. These torrid conditions have mostly left women and children on the brink, writes Frederic Musisi & George Muron
