Implications of COVID-19 for right of food in Uganda

“We are going to die of hunger before this virus even kills us”. This was the grim prediction of a one Eunice Nabifo, a mother of three in Kampala.1 Her fear is not unfounded. You will notice that many Ugandans, often called the urban poor, live a hand to mouth existence. Their ability to feed themselves as well as their dependents is hinged on being able to work for a day’s wage. Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in Uganda, the government’s stringent lockdown measures to limit the spread of the infection have exacerbated the precarious circumstances of such vulnerable people. This article therefore seeks to examine access to food for people such as Nabifo from a human rights perspective, tracing the historical developments that predisposed them to vulnerability and how COVID-19 has added salt to the wound to give the entire problem several new dimensions.