Nutrition Week Takes the Agenda to Busoga

From 22 to 26 June 2026, CEFROHT, the Uganda Parliamentary Alliance on Nutrition and Food Security and partners took Parliamentary Nutrition Week to the Busoga sub-region, placing children’s nutrition, unhealthy food environments and the need for stronger government action at the centre of the conversation.

Uganda is facing different forms of malnutrition at the same time. Nearly one in two children under 19 lives in multidimensional poverty, deprivation that includes food and nutrition. Among children aged 6–23 months, 86 percent are living in child food poverty, including 24 percent in severe food poverty, meaning they are not receiving the minimum diversity of foods needed for healthy growth and development.  At the same time, overweight and obesity are rising: 3.4% of children under five are overweight (UDHS 2022), while 33.2% of adults are overweight or obese (STEPS 2023)

These realities make nutrition a policy issue, not a matter of individual choice. A child who arrives at school hungry and a child who is increasingly exposed to unhealthy foods are experiencing different sides of the same problem: a food system that does not consistently guarantee access to healthy diets.

School feeding was therefore an important part of CEFROHT’s advocacy during the Week. Evidence from Uganda has long shown the scale of the gap. A national education assessment found that only 17 percent of pupils were receiving at least one meal at school, leaving the majority studying without a school-provided meal.

While some schools and development programmes provide meals, access remains uneven and is often dependent on parents’ ability to pay or provide food. CEFROHT advocates for a government-led school feeding model that recognizes school meals as an investment in children’s rights to adequate food, health, and education. This is particularly important for children who cannot depend on a stable household food supply, including children in child-headed households, orphans and other children living in vulnerable circumstances. A system that places the primary responsibility for school meals on parents risks leaving these children behind.

The same rights-based approach informed CEFROHT’s advocacy on unhealthy food environments. During community and school engagements in Busoga, CEFROHT documented the availability and promotion of foods and beverages high in sugar, salt and unhealthy fats. These observations strengthened the need to address the food environment alongside household food insecurity. Children need access to nutritious meals, but they also need protection from food environments that make unhealthy products highly visible, accessible and heavily promoted.

A major focus of the Week was therefore the call for mandatory Front-of-Pack Warning Labelling (FOPWL) and restriction of marketing of unhealthy food to children. CEFROHT explained how Uganda’s Nutrient Profile Model provides an evidence-based basis for identifying products high in nutrients of concern and how clear warning labels can help consumers recognise these products at the point of purchase. FOPWL forms part of a wider package of reforms that CEFROHT is advocating for to prevent diet-related non-communicable diseases and strengthen the right to health.

The advocacy gained support from political and local government leaders in Busoga. Local government leaders endorsed and signed the citizens’ petition calling for mandatory FOPWL and committed to advocate for the regulation with Parliament and the Ministry of Health. Members of Parliament from the Eastern region and the Jinja City Mayor also supported community mobilisation, adding political weight to the call for stronger food policies.

The conversation extended to the wider public through radio talk shows on Smart FM and NBS Radio. Members of the Uganda Parliamentary Alliance and local leaders participated in the programmes, discussing the country’s nutrition challenges, unhealthy food environments and the reforms needed to address them. Listeners were also encouraged to participate in the FOPWL petition through the online signing platform and to take part in the Nutrition week celebrations at Nakalama Primary School.

The Week generated evidence that will continue to inform CEFROHT’s advocacy. Photographs, community observations and testimonies from schools and communities will contribute to forthcoming research on unhealthy food environments in Busoga and strengthen the evidence supporting the national FOPWL campaign.

For CEFROHT, Parliamentary Nutrition Week showed a simple but important message: Uganda cannot address malnutrition by focusing on one problem at a time. Hunger, inadequate diets, overweight and obesity can exist within the same communities and even within the same households. The response therefore has to combine social protection and government-led school feeding with policies that make healthy food more accessible and regulate unhealthy food environments.

This is why CEFROHT continues to advocate for a government-led school feeding model, mandatory FOPWL, stronger regulation of unhealthy food marketing to children — and other legal and policy reforms that enable every Ugandan child to enjoy their right to adequate food and health.