ESSAYS IN POVERTY AND CHILD NUTRITIONAL STATUS IN UGANDA

The thesis consists of three interrelated essays on poverty, income distribution and child nutritional status in Uganda. The first essay titled “Poverty reduction and Income Distribution Impacts of Exogenous Policy Shocks in Uganda: A Social Accounting Matrix Perspective” asks, how and which sectors and economic agents would be most affected by exogenous policy shocks that target growth, income distribution and poverty reduction? This is answered by a way of a general equilibrium model - the social accounting matrix (SAM)-based multiplier model based on the 2002 Uganda SAM. The second essay titled “Measurement of Multidimensional Child Poverty in Uganda” uses the anthropometric indicators and a household composite wealth indicator as measures of child well-being and applies the Dual Cutoff and Counting approach proposed by Alkire and Foster (2007, 2011) to construct a multidimensional child poverty index for Uganda. The third essay titled “The Relationship Between Maternal Autonomy and Child Stunting in Uganda” uses direct evidence on measures of women’s autonomy namely, freedom of movement to visit families or relatives, decisionmaking power on making large household and daily purchases, and women’s attitude toward verbal and physical abuse to examine the relationship between maternal autonomy and child stunting in Uganda. Data for essay 2 and 3 were drawn from the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) for the year 2006. Results show that key sectors in Uganda are Real estate, Agriculture, Trade and Food processing industries; 30% of children are multidimensionally poor; and low maternal autonomy is associated with stunting.