Browsing by Author "Okuonzi Sam Agatre"

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Building Social Capital for Health Information
(Uganda Martyrs University, Department of Health Sciences, 2003-12) Okuonzi Sam Agatre
The concept of “social capital” has been re-engineered to reflect the level and use of knowledge within society. It includes the extent to which society can create, innovate and use knowledge. This new understanding of social capital is a reconstruction of the World Bank. But the original idea of social capitalism was rooted in the trust of individuals in society. Later, it extended to the trust of the Government and its systems. Social capital was taken to be the trust, solidarity, friendship and good neighbourliness among individuals of a community. It included the social protection networks within a family and in the wider community. A society where individuals reasonably trusted each other, showed solidarity with one another and showed a spirit of good neighbourliness was regarded as community with high social capital. Most societal ideals have these elements of social capital.
Political Economy of Health with Reference to Primary Health Care
(Uganda Martyrs University, Department of Health Sciences, 2004-04) Okuonzi Sam Agatre
Politics and economics have dealt with resource allocation from time immemorial. However, the basis for resource allocation and sharing depend on the nature and type of politics and economics, which also depend on different value laden ideologies on which they are based. Two key types of political economies have emerged: collectivism which permits the sharing of social benefits; and free market or neoclassical political economy, which provides economic advantages to a section of society at the expense of or regardless of the suffering of the majority of the population. HC was conceived with the experiences of these two political economies in mind. However, the current free market has reached unprecedented dimensions. It is not possible to implement and accommodate the values of PHC in this sort of political economy. Fortunately, it is predicted that this sort of social and economic order cannot last long, and that its end is at hand. There are many signs that show that it is not sustainable. Only in a socio-economic order where human welfare is the central focus and where the market plays a peripheral role will the principles of PHC be successfully implemented.
The Role of Governments in Ending and Preventing Armed Conflicts
(Uganda Martyrs University, Department of Health Sciences, 2004-08) Okuonzi Sam Agatre
The war in northern Uganda is ending, or is it? The official Government position is that the war is practically over. And they have evidence for it. Rebel soldiers are surrendering in droves, and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony has retreated far into the Sudan with his army, having been scattered into small groups, which are constantly on the run. Had history not taught us to be careful about such declarations, Ugandans would be celebrating the defeat of the LRA, given the unspeakable atrocities LRA has especially meted on children. But the declaration of a near-defeat or elimination of Kony and his LRA has been propagated by the Government for 18 years. And yet, somehow, the much-desired end of the LRA has always failed to materialize. Still, there is cause for optimism about the end of the war in the north, this time. But the end of the LRA rebellion does not mean the end of wars in the north or in Uganda. The basic factors that start and propel wars in Africa are still intact in Uganda. They could still be re-ignited or could flare up again. The initial cause of the northern rebellion that subsequently coalesced around the LRA was a tribal revenge. It was to defy the National Resistance Army (NRA), who the north perceived as being dominated by Baganda and Banyankole (southerners), seeking revenge. The Acholi say the NRA wrecked pillage in Acholi and (and generally in the north) in revenge for the atrocities carried out in the early 1980s by the Obote Government, which the NRA branded as a Government of northerners. The NRA rebellion took place in Luwero Triangle, which straddles a wide area in Buganda and other parts of southern Uganda. The beginning of the rebellion in the north was therefore not about a political comeback of northerners, although this would have been a bonus. It was about revenge and defiance. However, the war lost its original revenge-and-defiance causes, and begun to be fueled by other factors.