BACK GROUND INFORMATION OF BUYENDE DISTRICT

History of Buyende

Buyende District is the former Budiope county of Kamuli District. Budiope became a county in 1974 when Bugabula county of Busoga District Administration was divided to create two other counties of Buzaaya and Budiope and together with Bulamogi formed North Busoga District of Busoga province.

Budiope County was granted District status in November 2009 by the Parliament and became operational on 12^th, February 2010 with the establishment of the interim District Local Council. It took the name of Buyende District because of its location of the then Buyende Sub County.

Buyende District is made up of two counties, two constituencies, 5 sub counties, one town council, 38 parishes and 350 zones.

Location

Buyende District is located in the East of Kampala 166km from the main Town and the distance from Kamuli Town to Buyende District Headquarters via Nabirumba is 30km. Buyende borders the districts of Amolator, Kaberamaido and Serere in the north of Lake Kyoga.  Pallisa in the north east, Kaliro in the east, Luuka and Kamuli in the south and Kayunga in the west.

Area

Buyende has a total land area of 1975sq km, of this 708sq km covers the waters of Lake Kyoga and River Nile. 1267sq km is of dry land. Buyende stretches 82 km East to West if from Irundu to Bukungu.

Soils

Geologically Buyende like most of Uganda exists of “wholly changed rocks”, a kind of “Precambrian rocks”. Only on the lakesides of Lake Kyoga one finds quaternary sedimentary rocks. The soils are predominantly dark brown clays (grumosolic soils), underlain by gneiss. It has generally shallow sandy loams of medium to low fertility.

Climate

The rainfall is a climatic factor of the greatest economic significance for the district. The district experiences a bimodal type of rainfall with peaks in March-June as well as August –November, with the March to June peak as the major one. The average annual temperatures in most areas of the district range from 19 C -25 C Celsius.

Vegetation

The predominant vegetation cover in the district is the forest/Savannah mosaic constituted of a mixture of forest remnants and savannah trees with grass and shrubs. Much of it is secondary vegetation that has succeeded the original forest cover as a result of farming, timber and fuel harvesting and other forms of land use do take place.

Source of energy

The source of energy for cooking and lighting in Buyende is fire wood and fuel. There is limited supply of hydro-electric power that passes through Balawoli to Bukungu. There is no power supply at the district headquarters and the rest of the parts of the district.

Buyende district experiences land degradation and it mainly results from population pressure and poor land use practices. As farm holdings become smaller and smaller, the plots are over cultivated. Given that the soils are less fertile in some places, over cultivation leads to degradation, which is currently evident in many parts of the district.

Tourism

Tourism in Buyende took root with Busoga Tourism Initiative (BTI). The majour Tourism activity in the District is the Kagulu hill climbing Challenge in Kagulu Sub-county, that normally attracts people from the globe and it is an annual event. However, there are other tourism sites in the district like Kasato hills, the ornament fish, flying birds, palm scenery in Iyingo and Nkoone, Iyingo, cultural site where the Babito Omukama Namutukula Kitimbo and his wife Naudho settled from Bunyoro. Never the less, Crocodiles at Kigingi and Baboons at Kasato hill are condemned as vermin and are shot at.

Religion

The district is mainly dominated by Anglicans forming 62.9%, followed by Catholics at 16.4%, Moslems at 12.04%, Pentecostals at 4.45% and SDAs at 2.37%

The highest number of household heads was found under age group 30-34 representing 14.8%. KIDERA took the lead at 15% of the total sub county while BUGAYA had the least at 13%. It was also found out that the population increased with increasing age until after the age of 18. Buyende has a population density of 150 persons per square kilometre. However Buyende experiences a non-balanced spatial distribution of the population.  The growth of population in the district is caused by both artificial and natural population increase.

Social and cultural structure

According to its social and cultural structure, the population of Buyende district is quite heterogeneous. People from various ethnic groups as well as different religious groups live together in Buyende which enriches the cultural life and builds the basis for a peaceful atmosphere in the district.

Even if the district can be called a multi-ethnic community, nevertheless the dominant ethnic groups are still the Basoga, Banyoro, Bakenye, and Itesots among others.

Migration

The 2002 population showed 26.1% to be war migrants across Lake Kyoga to the then Budiope County the current Buyende District.

Population

The district population is 320,468 according to the 2014 National Housing and Population Census results.

VISION:

A prosperous Population with quality social services and Infrastructure

MISSION STATEMENT:

To promote social-economic development of the district through delivery of comprehensive social services to the community while upholding the local and national priorities.