The World Health Statistics 2023 Report ranks Uganda among the leading countries with high alcohol consumption rates. The report comes out at a time when the country is taking giant steps to control alcohol consumption spearheaded by the Ministry of Health with support from WHO based on the SAFER Initiative.

According to the WHO report, it is estimated that Uganda currently consumes 12.2 liters of alcohol per person annually. This is much higher than the African region average of 6.3 liters, and the global average of 6.18 liters per person per year reflected in the WHO global status report on alcohol and health, 2018.

Uganda’s statistics are particularly worrying because the harmful use of alcohol causes a high burden of disease and has significant social and economic consequences.  It is the underlying factor in more than 200 diseases and injuries across the world and has significant social and economic consequences.

To address this catastrophic situation, WHO in collaboration with international partners, launched the SAFER initiative in 2018. SAFER is a World Health Organization initiative and technical package that can help governments reduce the harmful use of alcohol and related health, social and economic consequences.

The initiative focuses on the most cost-effective urgent interventions such as strengthening restrictions on alcohol availability, advancing and enforcing drunk-driving counter measures, and facilitating access to screening, brief interventions, and treatment, enforcing bans or comprehensive restrictions on alcohol advertising, sponsorship and promotion, and raising prices on alcohol through excise taxes and pricing policies.

To this end, the SAFER initiative is a timely intervention for Uganda to deliver on commitments made by the heads of state and government at the high-level meetings on prevention and control of Noncommunicable diseases in 2011, 2014 and 2018 as well as the sustainable development agenda in 2015, says World Health Organization (WHO) Country Representative, Dr. Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam.

The SAFER initiative will complement Uganda’s efforts to address alcohol harm that have gained momentum. Key to note is the 2019 National Alcohol Control Policy and the 2022 Alcoholic Control Bill that seek to strengthen restrictions on alcohol availability. They also aim to regulate the manufacture, importation, sale, and consumption of alcohol by vulnerable populations such as law enforcement officers and persons below the age of 18 years are a case in point.

Dr. Kenneth Kalani Okware, a psychiatrist and senior medical officer at the Ministry of Health stresses the relationship between the harmful use of alcohol and a range of mental and behavioral disorders, other non-communicable conditions and injuries.

“In collaboration with WHO and the relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the Ministry of Health is implementing the SAFER initiative through facilitating access to screening, conducting brief interventions, providing treatment to patients and other interventions,” he says.

For the initiative’s objectives to be ably met, there is need for multi-sectoral support, for instance, advancing and enforcing drink driving counter measures is in the Uganda Police docket. Regular and consistent enforcement would go a long way in reducing road carnage.

The easy access to alcohol challenge can be handled by policy makers through establishing an effective system for domestic taxation on alcohol that raises the final price of alcohol so that the vulnerable children and adolescents cannot afford it. The advertising standards restrict the use of direct and indirect price promotions, discount sales, sales below cost for unlimited alcohol consumption, advertising times and content in advertising scripts. Monitoring these standards is the responsibility of the Uganda Communications Commission.

The SAFER initiative’s global strategy that is currently piloted in Uganda consists of framing a multi-stakeholder communications and advocacy campaign, as well as an inclusive monitoring system. WHO pledges to continue working with the Ministry of Health and partners to reduce alcohol-related harm and save lives of people in the country.