Stories written by Evelyn Kiapi
Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi, a development communications specialist, has been practicing journalism for over 10 years, serving in different capacities from freelance journalist to reporter, sub editor, features editor and product editor. She is currently an independent journalist covering development issues for both local and international media. Locally, Evelyn has written for the Monitor (now Daily Monitor) and The Observer in Uganda and corresponds for IPS and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.
Evelyn holds a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Makerere University and a master’s degree in development studies from the University of Leeds, U.K. where she specialised in gender, reproductive health and rights. Through the years, Evelyn has written vastly on these issues, winning several international and local media awards.
Evelyn is also a practicing media consultant and has written gender- and reproductive health-related articles for the Population Reference Bureau and United Nations Millennium Development Goal Africa Campaign and worked as a communications and media consultant for UNFPA’s Uganda office.
As the first Review Conference of the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court takes stock of the ICC's achievements and considers amendments to strengthen the pursuit of justice around the world, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize is one of its strongest defenders.
The Millennium Goals cannot be achieved at the United Nations. The U.N. can create a platform for governments to make commitments but cannot force compliance by member states.
Activists have spent decades trying to get new laws passed to secure the rights of Ugandan women in the private sphere. As a fresh set of gender-related laws comes before parliament, activists are this time seeking to enlist male legislators as partners in advocating their passage.
In 2003, Corporal James Omedio and Private Abdullah Muhammad stood before a public firing squad for killing Irish Catholic priest Declan O'Toole, his driver Patrick Longoli, and his cook Fidel Longole.
Tens of thousands of Ugandan schoolchildren have enrolled in 'True Love Waits' clubs that promote sexual abstinence as the way to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Opposition supporters have rejected Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's victory in general elections held last Thursday - the first multi-party poll to take place in the country in over 20 years.
The spread of the internet has opened Uganda to a vast array of trends and influences that would have had little effect in previous years. However, a good many citizens who have peered into this brave new world are not sure they like what they see - especially the two pornography sites featuring Ugandans that took the country by surprise recently.
It's a cold, wet Sunday evening outside the Little Highbury pub. Inside, patrons are glued to a huge television screen showing an eagerly awaited football match between two English Premier League teams: Arsenal and Chelsea.
Concern is growing over the prospects for press freedom in Uganda - this after claims by President Yoweri Museveni that the media were compromising security.
Nearly a decade ago, the Kampala Declaration on Prison Conditions in Africa was drawn up to improve the situation of inmates across the continent. In an ironic twist, however, the capital that gave its name to the initiative has yet to meet the goals of the declaration.
Uganda is one of Africa's rare success stories in the fight against AIDS, having reduced its HIV prevalence from 30 per cent in the early 1990s to six per cent today. However, the pandemic has still taken a toll on the East African country, causing almost two million children to be orphaned.
Urban poverty has a familiar face - the image of the overcrowded and garbage-strewn slum. It may surprise many to hear, then, that three quarters of the world's poorest people - about 900 million persons - live in rural areas.
Reports. They gather dust on the desks of journalists and bureaucrats - after having been opened with reluctance, and closed with speed. Months of work may have gone into their production; but all too often, the only use for these weighty tomes seems to be as doorstops.
Lake Victoria has long been a name to conjure with. The world's second-largest fresh water lake, and the largest in Africa, it stretches out endlessly - rippled by the breeze that characteristically blows over the lake.
Uganda's success in fighting AIDS has been justly celebrated. In 1993, the country had an HIV prevalence rate of 30 percent - this according to the Uganda AIDS Commission, which was set up by government to coordinate the fight against HIV. The rate now stands at six percent.