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Inclusive growth and development are essential for the sustainability of poverty reduction and growth. Social protection has been promoted as part of the inclusive growth and development agenda by emphasising the positive impacts of social transfers on people’s participation in economic processes. However, the focus on the positive economic impacts of social transfers has led to the neglect of concerns regarding inequality of opportunity. Taking the case of Uganda’s Senior Citizens Grant, this paper critically assesses how inclusive the impacts of social transfers are on economic processes. This is done by examining the extent to which local economic structures interplay with the impacts of the Grant. Based on a qualitative case study design, the analysis reveals that the scheme has unwittingly reinforced spatial patterns of economic exclusion and disadvantage. Recipients in remote areas are more likely to stay or fall back into poverty compared to people in integrated areas. For social transfers to contribute to inclusive growth and development for all, it will be vital to invest in complementary development interventions in economically disadvantaged areas.

Ugandan households play a central role in child care and protection, and household-level practices influence the ways in which children are protected from adversities. This study was designed to identify community perceptions of protective and harmful parenting practices in three districts in Uganda. It employed free-listing interviews to determine priorities and practices deemed to be important in providing care and protection to children. Findings suggest that parenting practices can be grouped into seven basic themes, which are: Investing in children's future, Protection, Care, Enterprising, Relationship with neighbors, Intimate partner relationship, and Child Rearing. Investing in children's future, including educating children, was cited most often as a hallmark of positive parenting; while failure to care for children was most often cited as a hallmark of negative parenting. Concrete behaviors, such as walking a daughter to school; sewing a son's torn pants before going to church; and structuring study time at home were identified as concrete actions Ugandan parents undertake daily to promote their children's well-being. Conversely, specific contextual aspects of neglect and abuse were identified as central components of negative parenting, including lack of investment in children's education and not serving as a good role model. Building on community strengths is recommended as a principal means of enhancing household resilience and reducing childhood risk.

Background: Violence against children (VAC) in Uganda is recognized as an urgent dilemma; however, most research has been quantitatively oriented and has seldom involved children in the research process. Objective: We discuss what we learned about child participation in the research process as a means of informing ethical praxis in future child- and youth-led research initiatives. As an overarching aim of this paper, we utilize our engagement with YPAR as a springboard to reflect on methodological best practices for VAC research that involve children themselves as part of a movement to democratize the research process. Participants and Setting: The study includes street-connected children (40), sexually exploited children (19) and domestic workers (34) in Kampala. Methods: The YPAR team led participant observation, 52 semi-structured life history interviews, 31 auto-photographic exercises, and 4 focus groups. All data collection, analysis and dissemination activities were led by the YPAR team including four Ugandan street-connected youth between the ages of 16–25 and two Ugandan university-trained youth researchers. Results: The results are framed as a methodological reflection regarding the complexities and transformative potential of including children as researchers in the framework of YPAR. Conclusions: We urge scholars to create spaces for sustainable YPAR movements, both in academic and policy arenas, and to design participatory initiatives that prioritize knowledge produced by and for the improvement of children’s lives globally. We encourage challenging traditional, extractive research practices through participatory approaches that carve out spaces for child participation in research.

In refugee generating situations, flight conditions and actual refugee circumstances, Gender Based Violence take different forms like rape, female genital mutilation, physical, psychological and emotional abuse, defilement and bride kidnapping in the name of ‘early marriage’ and sexual harassment among others. These forms are heightened by the adverse conditions of lack of basic needs, unequal power relations, breakdown of institutions of social control and order, exposure to the dangers of group violence and low capacity of protection agencies both local and international, and the host governments. This study intended to detail refugee experiences of Gender Based Violence among refugees in Uganda as well as the associated factors. We conducted a qualitative study and used content-thematic approach analysis. While there was high GBV awareness; this did not translate into reduced susceptibility. Detection, prevention and response to GBV were curtailed by an intersectionality of unequal power relations, poverty, and a multiplicity of cultures that concealed the nature, extent and reality of GBV. Effective GBV prevention requires an array of interventions and ‘capacities’ especially access to basic needs for individuals and households. Our findings aver that, gender based violence is endemic in peripheral hard to reach, conflict and post-conflict settings than in more stable communities due to under-reporting and concealment that are associated with numerous capacity challenges in access and utilisation of the available services. The extreme conditions that refugees go through during displacement, flight and resettlement tend to exacerbate and sustain GBV. Keywords: Experiences, Gender Based Violence, Refugee Camps

This chapter is primarily based on a study conducted in a rural community in south-central Uganda in Makondo Parish, Ndagwe sub-county, Lwengo district. The study, which employed mixed methods, investigated household dynamics in collection, transportation and use of safe-drinking water. The study findings are complemented by additional interviews with children water collectors in a peri-urban context in Wakiso District that sought, among others, to capture voices and perspectives of children regarding their experiences in water transportation. Our findings confirm that the burden of collecting water for domestic use is almost exclusively a domain of children and their mothers or other female members of the household. The distances covered and the time spent in collecting water, the volumes and mode of transportation are all potentially hazardous to children’s physical and emotional health, which inadvertently have not been addressed by rural water policy and interventions. We argue for water supply options and service interventions that are consciously designed to sustainably address risks and vulnerabilities associated with water collection and transportation by children. Ensuring increased coverage of improved water sources within a distance of one and a half kilometers, promotion of rain water harvesting in communities, ensuring sustainable operation and maintenance of point-water sources as well as protection of open water sources are some of the supply related interventions that could address the burden of children in water transportation. It is not the intention of this chapter to promote child involvement in work, but rather, to advocate for a service delivery environment that not only lessens the physical burden of water collection for children but also other environmental and social risks associated with their ‘socially and culturally defined responsibility’ of water collection.

Twenty-four per cent of households in 36 village communities of Central and Western Uganda have escaped from poverty over the past 25 years, but another 15 per cent have simultaneously fallen into poverty. A roughly equal number of households escaped from poverty in the first period (ten to 25 years ago) as in the second period (the last ten years) examined here. However, almost twice as many households fell into poverty during the second period as in the first period. Progress in poverty reduction has slowed down as a result. Multiple causes are associated with descent into poverty and these causes vary significantly between villages in the two different regions. For nearly two-thirds of all households in both regions, however, ill health and health-related costs were a principal reason for descent into poverty. Escaping poverty is also associated with diverse causes, which vary across the two regions. Compared to increases in urban employment, however, land-related reasons have been more import...