National union of Disabled Persons of Uganda NUDIPU and East Africa Center for Disability Law and Policy and Uganda Media Women's Association have raised over the low performance by Ministries, Departments and Agencies to prioritize issues of disability and their needs which they say is contrary to the Sustainable Development Agenda of Leaving No One Behind.
In an address to the press delivered on behalf of Esther Kyozira, Chief Executive Officer National Union of Disabled Persons in Uganda by Otim Robinson, Board member NUDIPU and representative for people with epilepsy, in collaboration with East Africa Center for Disability Law and Policy and Uganda Media Woman Association, NUDIPU conducted a desk review on how disability has been performing in gender and equity assessment for the period of 2019 to 2022 based on the findings of the Equal Opportunities commission EOC that has assessed eight sets of sector Budget Frame work papers and ministerial policy statements and found that the overall commitment of Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government to address the needs of persons with disabilities is about 30% from according to the gender and equity assessment reports reviewed for the financial years 2019/2020-2022/2023.
According to more findings;
Reporting the amount of funds spent on outputs that explicitly targeted person with disabilities performed at 27 percent in 2019/2020 financial year, 31 percent in the 2020/2021 financial year and 33% in the 2021/2022 financial year.
Commitment to Medium Term interventions targeting persons with disabilities performed at 30 percent in the 2019/2020, 29 percent in the 2020/2021 and 32 percent in 2021/2022 financial years.
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Committing specific funds on special outputs that address needs of the persons with disabilities performed at 37 percent, 36 percent and 35 percent in the 2019/2020, 2020/2021, 2021/2022 financial years respectively
Commitment to indicators that measure change realized by the vote name towards persons with disabilities performed at 15 percent, 20 percent and 21 percent in the 2019/2020, 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 financial years respectively.
With the low performance, Kyozira called on Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government to design the monitoring and evaluation tools which are disability responsive to guide on reporting of their achievements on disability and guide on subsequent planning and budgeting. She said, "Uganda Bureau of Statistics should collect disability disaggregated data to guide government on the inclusion of different categories of disability during planning and budgeting.
The Equal Opportunities commission which is mandated with elimination of discrimination and inequalities against marginalized persons or groups to continue building capacity of all MDAs and Local Government on gender and equity budgeting to address the gaps that exist among MDAs by increasing on their knowledge on the gender and equity requirements. Kyozira said, "EOC should keenly follow up on how MDAs have implemented the planned and budgeted interventions for addressing disability concerns as they track resources allocated by government."
Uganda is among the countries in the world implementing gender and equity budgeting.
