While appearing before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee during the scrutiny of the December 2025 Auditor General’s report, Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Dr Diana Atwine shockingly revealed that two million babies were born in Uganda in 2025.
She further noted that the number would have been higher at around three million if it wasn’t for infant mortality.
According to the 2024 National Population and Housing Census, the population stands at 45.9 million, growing at 2.9 percent annually. Even more concerning, half of it, some 22,750,701 are children under the age of 18.
The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) has over the past years disseminated several reports and the figures deserve a national conversation.
Despite the country’s Total Fertility Rate falling from 7.1 children per woman in 1991 to 4.5 children per woman in 2024, the population growth remains significantly high, and experts still expect Uganda to produce about 1.5 million babies on average every year. There’s worry the real number may already exceed those projections.
Approximately seven million Ugandans live below the poverty line, living on a dollar a day, an equivalent of about Shs3,800 a day, indicating that several households continue to struggle to afford basic living. Reports indicate that 27 percent of Ugandans, roughly 12.2 million people, already face simultaneous deprivations in education, health, and living standards.
The recently released Harmonised Integrated Survey portrays an intriguing shifting structure of the household itself. The proportion of male heads decreased by two percent from 66.3 percent in 2021/22 to 64.3percent in 2024/2025, and five-member households increased by 5.8 percent from 44.6 percent to 50.4 percent in the same period.
Interestingly, poverty is more prevalent and pronounced among female-headed households compared to male-headed households. On the other hand, the rate at which children are orphaned is equally alarming.
Another report shows that 2,873,622, representing 13percent of children, were orphans having lost either one or both parents in 2024 alone. This has led to the creation of households headed by children and youth, a recipe for disaster for the nation at large.
There’s never been an opportune time to advocate for access to reproductive health. Several countries in the recent past have reversed the trend by accelerating contraceptive use.
Neighbouring Rwanda increased contraceptive use nearly four-fold from 17 percent in 2000 to 64 percent in 2023, driving its fertility rate from 6.1 to 3.8 children per woman. Studies indicate that Ethiopia and Malawi have embarked on the same path, demonstrating the possibility.
The new government does not need to benchmark very far away from home, practical case studies are in the neighbourhood.
For a manageable dependency ratio, stronger per capita public spending, and socio-economic transformation, time to act is now. We have the data; we need the political will to act.