Kyankwanzi District

Kyankwanzi District
District
District location in Uganda
Coordinates: 01°12′N31°48′E / 1.200°N 31.800°E / 1.200; 31.800
Country	Uganda
Region	Buganda Region
Capital	Kyankwanzi
Area
• Land	2,455.3 km2 (948.0 sq mi)
Elevation	1,200 m (3,900 ft)
Population  (2012 estimate)
• Total	182,900
• Density	74.5/km2 (193/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+3 (EAT)
Website	www.kyankwanzi.go.ug

Kyankwanzi District is the westernmost district in the Buganda Region of Uganda and Buganda Kingdom, bordering Bunyoro. The district headquarters are in Butemba Town.

Geography

The Kyankwanzi District borders Nakaseke District to the east across the Mayanja River, Kiboga District to the south-east, Mubende District and Kibaale District to the south-west across the Lugogo River, and Hoima and Masindi districts to the north across the River Kafu. The district headquarters in Butemba Town on the Bukwiri-Kyankwanzi Road are approximately 160 kilometres (99 mi) by road from Kampala, the nation's capital. ^[1]

The district has lush green forests and prairies with only minor elevation differences as it is the plateau behind the western fork of the East African Rift running across the Hoima District. ^[2] The altitude is roughly 1,000–1,200 meters above sea level. ^[2]

History

Kyankwanzi District was carved out of Kiboga District by Act of Parliament in July 2010, with eight sub-counties in Kiboga North County. ^[3] Prior to the creation, district services operated from Kiboga Town, ^[4] approximately 35 kilometres (22 mi) from Butemba. ^[3] Further in the past, Kyankwanzi District was carved out of Kiboga District. ^[5] The reasons given for forming the district included the long distances that residents had to travel to access district services at Kiboga. ^[5]

The district name derives from Kyankwanzi Town, 20 km farther away from Kampala-Hoima Road, as the region is historically associated with the National Resistance Movement (NRM), which started the Ugandan Bush War of 1981-86 from cattle-herding Kyankwanzi under the direction of President Museveni. ^[6] Up to this day, Kyankwanzi serves as the strong foothold of the NRM and hosts the National Leadership Institute that provides training to serving military troops and public servants of Uganda. ^[7] Meanwhile, Butemba was chosen as the district seat for accessibility and land availability reasons. ^[8]

Administrative units

The district has only one county, Kiboga West County. ^{[9] [10]}

Culturally, Kyankwanzi is the northwestern frontier of the Buganda Kingdom, overseen from the Ssingo county seat of Mityana. Once belonging to Bunyoro, as Rugonjwa Sub-county, Nsambya Sub-county in the northwest was won by the Buganda Kingdom in the battles in the 1890s under Kabaka Mwanga II's rule. ^[11]

Demographics

In 1991, the national population census estimated the district population at 43,500. The next national census in 2002 estimated the population at 120,600. In 2012, the population was estimated at 182,900. ^[12]

In 2009, Kyankwanzi Sub-county, then under the Kiboga District, was recorded as the poorest administrative area in the Central Region, with 38 percent of the population living on less than US$1.00 a day. ^{[13] [14]}

Kiboga and Kyankwanzi are popular destinations for rural-to-rural migration in Uganda. The government announced in the 1990s availability of land resources to attract farmers from around the country. It is now inhabited by the Soga and Masaba peoples in the east, and the Kiga and Fumbira peoples from Kigezi in the southwest, as well as indigenous Baganda, Banyoro, and the cattle-keeping Ankole people/Rwandans with some Congolese refugees. Almost all residents are at least bilingual. ^[15]

Economic activities

Crop husbandry, livestock keeping, logging/charcoal-making are the three major economic activities in the district.^{[ citation needed ] [16] [17]}

Because the Kyankwanzi District is located along the cattle corridor that crosses the country from south-west to north-east, many residents are of Banyankole/Banyarwanda origin who pasture Ankole cattle in the vast woodland. Cattle-keeping is mostly concentrated on Kapeke, Kyankwanzi, Nsambya Sub-county areas. In these areas, weekly or bi-monthly cattle markets are set up in major trading centers. ^[2]

Crop husbandry is most prominent in the Nsambya Sub-country area with maize, beans, and rice produced, as well as tobacco leaves. Nsambya crop produce is marketed in the regional town of Hoima and the capital Kampala, where traders from urban areas and as far as in South Sudan and Kenya make purchases. Food crops, both for cash and subsistence purposes, include the following:

• Maize
• Common beans
• Groundnuts
• Upland rice of NERICA varieties
• Pineapples
• Tobacco
• Plantain
• Sweet Potatoes
• Cassava
• Millet
• Sorghum

Utilizing the rich soil, the Kyankwanzi area is also known as a producer of forest products, namely, timber and charcoal, both of which are tax revenue sources. ^[18]

The German company Global Woods AG has obtained a 50-year tree farming license from the National Forestry Authority for an area of 12,186 hectares on Ugandan state land in the Kikonda Forest Reserve. Global Woods plans to plant monocultures mainly of pine (Pinus caribaea, Pinus oocarpa) and eucalyptus (Eucalyptus grandis) trees on 8,000 hectares for later logging and to reserve the rest "for conservation". ^[19] Local farmers were driven from the land, ending the traditional practice of grazing cattle in the woods and making charcoal for cooking and the market. ^{[20] [21]} Global Woods sells carbon credits, which allow the purchaser to emit more greenhouse gases than the limit agreed in the Kyoto Protocol and later international climate conferences. ^{[22] [23]} Carbon certificates are also the subject of a speculative financial market. ^[24]

Public transport to Kyankwanzi District is chiefly made up of long-distance bus services which connect Kampala with the Bunyoro capital of Hoima. Taxis, both in wagons and sedans, connect major trading centres such as Bukwiri, Ntwetwe, Kyenda, Ntunda, and Kikonda with Kiboga. Kyankwanzi is served by taxis from Bukwiri and Bukomero, beside the training participants at the National Leadership Institute who have direct shuttle services from Kampala.

References

1. "Road Distance Between Kampala And Kyankwanzi With Map". Globefeed.com. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
2. "Overview | Kyankwanzi District Local Government". kyankwanzi.go.ug. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
3. "Location & Size | Kyankwanzi District Local Government". kyankwanzi.go.ug. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
4. Muzaale, Fred (3 September 2008). "Uganda: Kiboga Council Okays Creation of Kyankwanzi District". Daily Monitor via AllAfrica.com . Retrieved 15 May 2014.
5. "Overview | Kyankwanzi District Local Government". kyankwanzi.go.ug. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
6. Ofcansky, Thomas P. (1 July 1999). "Musevenis War and the Ugandan Conflict". Journal of Conflict Studies. ISSN   1715-5673.
7. "National Leadership Institute | (NALI) – Kyankwanzi". www.nali.go.ug. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
8. "Kyankwanzi District Local Government". kyankwanzi.go.ug. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
9. Districts of Uganda, Statoids, accessed 3 August 2015
10. Counties of Uganda, Statoids, accessed 3 August 2015
11. "Amasaza ga Buganda". Mukasa E. Ssemakula. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
12. "Estimated Population of Kyankwanzi District In 1991, 2002 & 2012". Citypopulation.de. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
13. Anthony Bugembe, and Francis Kagolo (3 February 2009). "New Study Names Poorest Ugandans". New Vision. Archived from the original on 2 October 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
14. Mallick, Lindsay (2019). "Using the Uganda Demographic and Health Surveys from 2011 and 2016 to assess changes in Saving Mothers, Giving Life intervention district". Journal of Global Health Report: 1–13.
15. "Kyankwanzi – Uganda | Data and Statistics – knoema.com". Knoema. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
16. Ali, Farasat; Khan, Babar; Khan, Garee; Abbas, Yawar; Hussain, Ejaz; Masud, Ambar; Akber, Karim; Karim, Rizwan (November 2015). "Hazard Vulnerability Risk Assessment of District Gilgit, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan". Modern Environmental Science and Engineering. 1 (5): 255–268. doi:10.15341/mese(2333-2581)/05.01.2015/007. ISSN   2333-2581.
17. Ggoobi, Ramathan (2017). "Economic development and industrial policy in Uganda" (PDF). Friendrich Ebert Stiftung: 1–43.
18. Mulumba, Moses (2018). "Using Health Committees to Promote Community Participation as a Social Determinant of the Right to Health: Lessons from Uganda and South Africa" (PDF). Health and Human Rights. 20 (2): 11–18. JSTOR   26542056. PMC   6293345 . PMID   30568398.
19. "timber – global-woods Uganda". uganda.global-woods.com. 17 July 2016. Retrieved 18 September 2016.
20. Götze, Susanne (9 December 2015). "Umstrittene Aufforstung in Uganda Bäume pflanzen, Bauern verdrängen" [Controversial Afforestation in Uganda – Planting Trees, Driving out Farmers]. Spiegel Online (in German). Hamburg: SpiegelNet GmbH. Retrieved 18 September 2016.
21. Lang, Chris (8 January 2016). "Global Woods' plantations in Uganda: Trees versus food". redd-monitor.org. Retrieved 18 September 2016.
22. "Company Overview of global-woods international AG". bloomberg.com. 2016. Retrieved 18 September 2016.
23. global-woods AG (2016). "Unterstützer Unternehmen: global-woods AG – Agentur für Erneuerbare Energien" [Supporters – Companies – Global Woods AG – Agency for Renewable Energies]. unendlich-viel-energie.de (in German). Retrieved 18 September 2016.
24. Allan, Nadiope (2018). "The influence of diameter on resin yield from pinus caribaea at Kikonda forest reserve Kyankwanzi district" (PDF). Thesis: 1–42.

External links

• Official website