Northern Uganda Social Action Fund benefits over 1059 Households

By Leonard Kamugisha

A total number of over 1059 households in the districts of northern
Uganda are said to have benefited from the second phase of the
Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF2) since the establishment of
the project.

NUSAF2 was a large –scale Community Driven Development program (CDD)
worth USD 135M, implemented by the Office of the Prime Minister in
coordination with districts and sub-county authorities aimed at is to
improve access of beneficiary households in Northern Uganda to income
earning opportunities and better basic socio-economic services.

Households have benefited from a wide range of project types,
including building teachers’ houses, livestock, putting up fencing,
establishing enterprise development among others.

The program is implemented by the Inspectorate of Government (IG),
World Bank and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) to promote social
accountability and oversight on government programs and NUSAF projects
through Transparency, Accountability and Anti- Corruption (TAAC)
components in public service delivery.

Alfred Otera, representative from NUSAF2 Directorate, said that the
program has improved on poverty eradication in Northern Uganda
districts with over 10000 sub-projects in 40 districts since 2009. He
was speaking at the meeting to disseminate the findings of the impact
evaluation report on NUSAF2 at Hotel Africana in Kampala today Tuesday
8th July2018.

“NUSAF2 that started in 2009 has greatly contributed on the
eradication of poverty in the region through infrastructural
development such as roads, schools and hospitals, recovery
rehabilitation and institutions building,” said Otera.

He also said that the regular monitoring and inspections of the
operations of projects by regional policy committees, IG and Social
Accountability Committee (SACM) enhances transparency making NUSAF2
score 99.98% financial accountability.

“I don’t know of any project in Uganda that has given accountability
of almost 100 percent of the money used. NUSAF has achieved this, no
single money was stolen. Isn’t that a great achievement? It could not
have been done if the IG had not kept an eye,” he added.

Grace Kwiyucwiny, state minister for Northern Uganda, urged NUSAF and
IG to make thorough follow-ups on the impacts on the lives of the
people involved vis-à-vis those who never participated in the program.

“You should get innovations and make follow-ups to get what you have
planned, government should ensure that its projects are implemented in
line with the set guidelines so that the money is used effectively,”
she said.

Kwiyucwiny, also called for logistics and funds to support IG in
engaging citizens in monitoring, implementation and demanding for
accountability not only in NUSAF projects but also in government
programs on the grassroots.

She said that as a result of disastrous wars in the region caused by
the Lords Resistence Movenment (LRA), over 900,000households still
live under grinding poverty applauding NUSAF for transforming the
communities and urged relief agencies, NGOs to emulate NUSAF program
and improve on the livelihoods of Northern people.

Dr. Nathan Fiala, Investigative Researcher from University of
Connecticut, while presenting TAAC evaluation results lauded IG, NUSAF
for training citizens to undertake monitoring and implementation of
the project and introducing the scorecard system which increased
quality performance of livestock project and other projects under
NUSAF2.

“The objective of the impact evaluation was to assess the
effectiveness of the social accountability training and of the
scorecard intervention, we would be great to support the IG to learn
about how to scale this in NUSAF3,” he pledged.

The Inspector General of Government, Irene Mulyagonja, asked the
government to develop a model similar to TAAC component that will be
used by all government departments to improve on accountability in all
public offices. She says supporting departments like Local Government,
Ministries and others promotes accountability.