ACTED UGANDA - The hand over of new schools and health centres to local authorities.

Rebuilding this region’s basic infrastructure is essential to support the populations returning to their villages after years of living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps.

As a result of fighting and massive exactions committed by armed groups since 1986, more than 1.8 million people have been forced to flee their homes to live in the relative security of sprawling IDP camps. Since a landmark agreement signed by rebel group and the Government in August 2006, the security situation in the region has markedly improved, allowing families to leave the camps to return to their villages of origin. However, this process has been hampered by the lack of infrastructure in the region as roads, schools, health centres, and private homes were severely damaged during the conflict.

The return process represents a fundamental turning point for families who have been living for years in congested camps, dependent on external help for their security, food and any other daily needs. Paradoxically, this moment is also a precarious one. Whereas large IDP camps offered some basic services, including food aid and health care facilities - although limited and overcrowded - the areas to which returnees go back are extremely worn down. For example, in Amuru district, where ACTED is currently operating, only 1 out of 5 schools is functional. In fact, close to 25% of the IDPs still living in Northern Ugandan camps cite difficulties in reaching cultivated lands and local markets because of the lack of roads, and the lack of clean water points, schools, and health facilities, as the primary reason for their refusing to return.

The challenge for NGOs like ACTED is therefore to assist IDPs and recent returnees in this transitory period, helping them to secure stable sources of income, and to become generally less reliant on emergency aid. To achieve these goals, ACTED has been implementing since January 2008 a double-pronged program, which targets both community infrastructure and individual livelihoods. ACTED has supervised the construction of classroom blocks and latrines in 3 primary schools of the district, and has also constructed staff houses in 5 primary schools and one health care centre. Having staff housing ensures that teachers and healthcare workers are present on a regular basis. The new infrastructure is expected to improve returnee communities’ access to basic social services, namely healthcare and primary education, and to increase other IDPs’ incentive to return to the area.

The construction works were implemented through ACTED’s innovative Voucher-for-Work scheme. Workers were therefore paid through vouchers that could then be redeemed against products like goats, seeds or agricultural tools in fairs organised by ACTED with local vendors. This scheme gives flexibility to workers (in contrast with food for work projects for example) while ensuring at the same time that their salaries are spent on productive items benefiting the entire household. Through ACTED’s project in Amuru district, 4,500 individuals will thus have had an opportunity to earn the agricultural inputs needed to take up farming after years away from their plots.

The project’s next step, to be implemented until December 2008, is to open 50 kilometres of access roads, which will further improve returnee communities’ connectivity with the rest of the district.

Category: News on December 2nd, 2008