Pastoral Women's Socio-Economic Way of Life United Nations Human Rights Council: Forum on Minority Issues Theme: Minorities and effective participation in economic life Session 3: Geneva, 14-15 December 2010 Thank you, Chairperson for giving me the floor. I, Irene Nadunga, representative from Uganda Coalition, for Crisis Prevention hereby make a statement for intervention to the forum at hand. Basing on the Minority Declaration and CEDAW 1, this statement highlights discrimination of pastoral women from the communities of Karamoja. Karamajong communities live off from Pastoralism as their main source of livelihood. However, pastoralism's economic and social values have for long been understood and underscored by the policy makers and still consider it to be primitive and economically incoherent with modern trends of development. With this perception based on a narrow view of what constitutes value in pastoral systems, national policies have undervalued pastoralism, putting it at the periphery of national development plans and actions The Government of Uganda in line with its commitments to international obligations has over the years made considerable achievements under good governance by instituting relevant national reforms, frameworks and interventions in developing the country's economy. These have included the development of the National Development Plan (NDP) that replaced the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP), Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA), and more specifically for the Karamoja region; Karamoja integrated Disarmament and Development Plan (KIDDP), Northern Uganda Social Action, NUREP and PRDP