Government’s accountability on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals: (The case of MDG 4 and 5 in Luweero District)

Abstract

The study explored and described government’s accountability on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals giving a case of Luweero District. The study objectives were to: examine the nature of Uganda’s National Policy on the MDGs fulfilment; examine the nature of accountability mechanisms on funds utilization on MDGs 4 and 5; assess the extent of Uganda’s performance on MDG 4 and 5 and examine the role of the United Nations Millennium Campaign in ensuring accountability of the Uganda Government on the MDGs. The research design that was used in the study was descriptive-exploratory. Triangulation was the methodology of collecting data, employing quantitative and qualitative methods, i.e., interviewing, questionnaire, observation, recording and photography. Methods included: face-to-face interviews, Focus Group Discussions (FGD) interviews, observation, audio recording, photography and survey-questionnaire. The conceptual framework used shows the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variables, i.e., government accountability, MDGs, political environment, and partnerships. A mixed sampling methodology was adopted for the sample selection. It involved randomization to select the mothers for the survey, and purposive sampling was used to select the Key Informants on whom interviews were conducted. Content Analysis was the data analysis method used where statistical descriptive narrative was employed for the frequency tables under quantitative data and inductive analysis allowed the discovery of additional aspects and relationships between government’s accountability and the achievement of Millennium Goals 4 and 5 in the qualitative data collected from the field. The findings revealed that, the policies are there and are good; however, they are not funded adequately, and thus implementation fails. Accountability mechanisms to achieve the MDGs are very lacking on political will and technical capacities. There has been improvement in the performance of line ministries, civil society and government in attaining average levels of awareness, availability, accessibility, and utilization of the health services. However, participation of the users of health services is not very well tapped. The United Nations and the civil society activities are inconsistent in the achievement of commitments to supporting developing countries on the MDGs. From the study, it can be asserted that the concept of accountability does not refer to merely financial accountability but also on the effective and efficient utilization of these resources in the implementation of programmes towards the MDGs.