Uganda began explicitly addressing poverty as a major development concern in response to the high social costs associated with structural adjustment, launching the Programme for the Alleviation of Poverty and the Social Cost of Adjustment in 1990. The programme targeted social services and welfare to a narrow range of disadvantaged groups, such as orphans, slum dwellers, war widows and laid-off civil servants. The government's goal is to eradicate extreme poverty by 2017 by shifting public expenditures and donor assistance into areas with a greater impact on poverty - such as rural development, physical infrastructure, direct human development and decentralized governance. Agricultural development is crucial to poverty reduction. Food, most of which is produced in the subsistence sector, accounts for two-thirds of agricultural production.
Official estimates using the human poverty index suggest that human poverty is similarly widespread.
With such a large share of the population in poverty, broad-based programmes make more sense than narrowly targeted ones, particularly in rural areas, where most of the poor are concentrated. A particularly important precondition for poverty reduction in Uganda is peace and security. Unstable political conditions have impeded progress in the north and west, periodically displacing sizeable groups. An indication of the importance of Uganda's poverty plan is that the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development manages it and reports directly to the offices of both the prime minister and the president. This setup helps provide better coordination than in most other countries, where ministries of social policy are often put in charge or separate social funds set up.