Our work in Uganda

Uganda is a country of strategic focus for DI because it presents an opportunity to improve data availability and use; it has a number of advantages when it comes to development data. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) is one of the best national statistical offices in Africa, and there is an abundance of high-quality development data in the country. The challenge is that much of this data is not publicly available – and what little is available is usually not easy to access and use. This means that the potential this data has to improve the lives of the poorest people is not being realised.

DI has been working to improve the availability, uptake and use of development data in Uganda since 2009. We work in partnership with UBOS, government ministries and civil society organisations to help ensure that the data being produced is useful, useable and used to inform policy.

Key achievements

Training budget advocates

Low levels of data literacy can prevent would-be advocates in Uganda from influencing how public funds are spent. DI teamed up with the Civil Society Budget Advisory Group in 2017 to train grassroot budget advocates in basic budget data literacy and the budget policy process. The two-day training programme was attended by 35 budget advocates from 10 districts. It improved their ability to access data sources and produce and present their own analyses more effectively and efficiently.

“DI is great at finding different sources of data. They can do the data mining, collecting the information, and presenting it clearly [...]. This makes analysis of complex information by our members easier and quicker.”
Sophie Kakembo, Budget Policy Specialist, Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group

Improving data use to boost budget advocacy in Uganda

Increasing public awareness of the role of statistics

Alongside UBOS we participated in planning, conceptualising and presenting a week-long series of events to raise public awareness of the importance of statistics in Uganda. Africa Statistics Week was attended by government representatives including the Minister of State for Planning and delegates from across the country.

Five key points from Africa Statistics Week in Uganda

Opening up government data use

In 2019, UBOS – a longtime collaborator with DI – identified us as a key stakeholder supporting statistics production and development in Uganda, and appointed us to their Technical Working Group on data. Through this group, which was established by the office of the prime minister as one of five supporting the national implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we helped to develop the third National Strategy for Statistics – which will govern how the national statistical system uses data in the future. As a trusted partner of UBOS, we are also contributing to the preparation of Uganda’s 2020 Voluntary National Report.

"Your organisation… [is] a key stakeholder supporting statistics production and development in Uganda."
Dr Chris Mukiza, Executive Director, Uganda Bureau of Official Statistics

Spotlight on the data revolution: Kenya Equity Week and Uganda High Level National Data Forum

Current work

Data Support Service in Uganda

Our Data Support Service in Uganda improves access to and use of evidence on poverty, people and resources by development stakeholders in ways that can help reduce poverty and promote sustainable development. For example, we recently worked with the Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI) to supply them with the poverty, vulnerability and resource data that they needed to advocate for international trade.

“We chose to work with DI because they are local and they have localised their data – you can get information at the regional, national, subnational and even district levels. Many other organisations, including some government departments, do not have this detailed information, or it is out of date. DI continuously update their data, which has proven to be vital, and it is also diverse across many categories.”
Africa Kiiza, Programme Officer, Trade Policies and Negotiations, SEATINI

Pro-poor budget analysis

DI conducts an annual pro-poor analysis of the Uganda budget with the aim of determining whether planned government spending will benefit the poorest people. In 2018, circulation of our analysis among civil society organisations led to us contributing to the preparation of the Civil Society Budget Advisory Group’s position paper on the 2019/20 budget process.

Is the 2019/20 Uganda budget pro‑poor?

Improving data on disability

DI is working with Sightsavers as part of the Inclusion Works consortium to improve the quality and use of data on disability in Uganda and three other target countries. DI’s work to review the available data from official and unofficial sources, and find where it could be improved, will feed into the consortium’s overarching objective of creating and testing innovative approaches to improve the long-term economic empowerment and inclusion of people with disabilities in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda.

Disability data in developing countries: opportunities to support inclusion

Spotlight on Uganda

Much of Uganda’s official data is spread across government agencies and not presented in easy-to-use formats. In 2020 we redesigned our Spotlight on Uganda, a free online tool first launched in 2015 to provide datasets on key development indicators for Uganda in an accessible format, all in one place, that people can easily explore. Its purpose is to help the work of government agencies and ministries, advocacy and civil society organisations, international donors and others who are working to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development. The new tool has more comprehensive data and offers greater interactivity, for example providing comparisons between a huge range of socioeconomic and demographic indicators at national and subnational levels.

The Uganda government and other stakeholders have recognised the Spotlight on Uganda as a major Uganda-based data innovation. For example, we joined the Uganda Communication Commission, the government's communications regulatory body, at the International Telecommunication Union 'Telecom World' 2015 conference in Budapest, where the Spotlight was showcased as a major innovation in 'smart data use'.