Although the number of richer Ugandan has improved substantially over the years, a recent survey reveals a huge contrast in the rate of wealth between people living in urban areas and those in rural areas.The 2011 Uganda Demographic and Health survey conducted by the Uganda National Bureau of Statistics (Ubos ) indicates that three-quarters of the population (75 per cent) is the highest wealth quintile, compared to rural areas where only one in every nine people (11 per cent) are in the richest category. The survey was conducted in 10 districts including West Nile, North, Karamoja, Eastern, East Central, Central1, Central2, Western, South West, and Kampala. The report further shows that wealth distribution also varies greatly across regions, with over 90 per cent of the population in Kampala being the highest wealth quintile, while in other regions the proportion is 35 per cent or lower. In Karamoja, eight in 10 households are in the lowest quintile while 33 per cent of the population in the North, West Nile, and Eastern regions is in the lowest quintile, indicating that poverty is more concentrated in the northern region. Mr Andrew Mukulu, the director population and social statistics at Ubos, however, said the Karamoja region could have been ranked as the region with the largest proportion of poorest households due to the fact that they don’t own a set of goods that were used in wealth index. “The Karamajongs own cattle and could be rich because they own cattle but we didn’t use cattle to measure; maybe that’s why they fall in that category,” Mr Mukulu said.
