As a high school debater, I realized earlier on that adversarial discourse about any issue builds perspective and is fundamental for strengthening viewpoints and opinions. You cannot efficiently advocate or take steps for the realization of social and economic Rights or any Rights at that if you do not have a clear understanding of what they entail and their importance. It is also very important that you get to hear from people with contrary views so that you can find responses that will strengthen your views or help you see things from another perspective. Both of these outcomes can be achieved through Public debate.

Human Rights have to be understood as rights that everyone is inherently entitled to. Social economic Rights particularly often get embroiled in political bluer where people think that the state has no obligation to guarantee the same. My ISHR Campus event focused on increasing awareness and understanding of social and economic Rights and the state’s obligation to provide public services as a way to realize the rights to health, life, and education. I hosted the ISHR campus event on 28th September at Makerere University in partnership with the Makerere Debate Union and Lex Amica, student-led associations that foster student discussions and promote the rule of law and Human Rights. The event was a Students’ Public Debate forum.

The Debate Forum had two sessions, a closed debate round and an open forum that involved everyone present sharing their views. The debate round was conducted in the British Parliamentary format and that involved two sides with two teams of two people on each side. The Resolution/Motion was that this house prefers a minimalist state. A minimalist state is defined as one that only protects people’s lives and property and does not do anything about the provision of public services.

The strongest view from the Government side was that in the event that governments don’t provide public services, private individuals would have to do so and these are subject to free markets which would result in overpriced public services that are inaccessible for most people. In the alternative, the Opposition stated that government provision of public services is strongly threatened by state inefficiencies like corruption and bureaucracy which would result in the provision of public services of substantially poor quality. The Forum part of the discussion was also very engaging and people expressed various views as far as governments can provide public services. After the forum, the best teams and participants were awarded medals and certificates.

The ultimate purpose of this Event was to spark discussion amongst us young people on an issue that is fundamental and important for the realization of our rights and those of other people within our community. Things like poor health services and or costly education are a reality that we have to live with every day in Africa in General and Uganda in particular, and it is something worth talking about. We appreciate the ISHR for their support in organizing this.