Assessing Weather Services for Rural Fishing and Farming Communities in Uganda

Climate-related hazards like drought are associated with loss of life and lead to food insecurity in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Food insecurity, which affects more than 220 million sub-Saharan Africans, manifests as starvation that leads to more than 50% of children under the age of 5-years presenting as underweight for age in many communities on the continent. This household survey reports the means by which rural fisher folk and farming communities in Uganda gained access to early warning meteorological information. The survey covered five districts across different climatic zones in Uganda and recruited a total of 405 respondents with an average age of 41 years (SD 16). Economic activity was used to categorize each of the five districts into farming (crops and livestock) and fishing areas. The results showed that most respondents were unaware of drought as one of the climate-related hazards. Compared to respondents from the fishing communities, the respondents from farming communities were more likely to be receiving weather-related information (P-value < 0.01). There were 204/405 (50.37%) female respondents who, compared to male respondents, were less likely to have access to weather information, less willing to pay for weather information, and less likely to have and or own devices like a radio for receiving weather information. The survey demonstrated that: 1) there were gaps in the knowledge about climate-related hazards, 2) there is a need for additional interventions targeting fisher folk communities access timely weather information, and 3) introducing user paid access to weather information may increase climate-related gender-based disparities.