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How Satire Changed Service Delivery in Kampala

By SG Editor·
Cartoon depicting Kampala's service delivery issues with satire and cityscape background.

Satirical cartoon highlighting Kampala’s service delivery challenges and urban development through humor.

Ugandan cartoonist Jim Spire Ssentongo didn’t know what he was starting last April when he sent out a tweet encouraging people to post photos of the ubiquitous potholes across the country’s capital. Ugandans started uploading their photos immediately. Within a day, KCCA’s executive director, Dorothy Kisaka, made a public statement about the pothole situation, saying that the authority was constrained by inadequate government funding. Nearly a year since that first exhibition call, Ssentonga has been involved in six more: about hospital conditions, foreign recruitment scandals, corruption and nepotism within non-governmental organisations (NGOs), human rights abuses, and more. Each campaign has used a specific hashtag such as #UgandaHealthExhibition and asked people to post “evidence” – photos, videos, audio, documents – of neglect or abuse by authorities. Some Ugandans have likened the protests to the Arab Spring.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA