ABSTRACT
Kadijja Nantonga worked with her husband at a coffee processing plant in central Uganda and was doing well by the standards of her community. Then, in 1996, her husband was killed along with ten others in a bus accident. Motor vehicle deaths are much more common in low-income countries, where bad infrastructure and weak traffic regulation lead to high mortality and morbidity on the road. Widowed, Kadijja kept working to support her family. Five years later, a disease destroyed the local coffee crop, causing Kadijja to lose her job when the factory closed. At the same time, her son fell ill, and she sold off many of her assets to pay for his health care. In the end, his disease was not adequately treated, and he died 2 years later. Kadijja, having lost her partner and son, now with no regular income and few assets, lived alone with her daughter (who was pulled from school), piecing together informal work (Krishna 2008, pp. 2-3). Even if Kadijja experiences some unexpected good luck, it will have been a life plagued by financial insecurity, hunger, poor health, and profound sadness and loss. It is also a life story that is sadly familiar to the situation faced by billions of people across the globe.
