"A Prosperous, Healthy,

Introduction

The Agency for Accelerated Regional Development (AFARD) is a local non-governmental organization with a vision of “a Prosperous, Healthy, and Informed People of West Nile.” It works in 5 of the 8 districts in West Nile where poverty is twice the national average figure. In 2011, AFARD focused on: (i) deepening its programme impacts - stabilizing food security; piloting production for the market and asset; strengthening community health; advocating for girl child education; evoking participation by grassroots communities in local government budget cycle; and strengthening the capacity of community groups; and (ii) improving operations through governance and management effectiveness; deepening accountability; and piloting AFARD’s sustainability building.

Key Interventions

From January 1 to December 31, 2011, we reached out to 403,206 people (74% females) through various development programmes such as: West Nile Development Initiative (WENDI) Programme; Increasing West Nile Smallholder Farmers’ Agricultural Productivity; Engendering Decentralized Poverty Resources Management Project; Fisher Community Anti-AIDS Project (FiCAP); Payera Community Development Project; Jangokoro Food Security Project; Mainstreaming rights to food in Sub-national plans and strategies; and Technical support Capacity Building for Production for the Market and Assets.

Through these programmes we were able to: 

• Provide 300 hand hoes, 388 improved goats, 1,536 local nannies, and 1,700 bags of cassava cutting together with improved agronomic and livestock management trainings, and nutrition education for couples.
• Provided 150MT of soya beans, 52MT of simsim and 67MT of groundnuts seeds together with other marketing equipment, set up a UGX 200 million start-up capital and build a warehouse.
• Drill 6 boreholes, train their Facility Management Committees, and enforce monthly user fees and home surveillance.
• Retrain 634 CHFAs; undertake community education of 9,247 people, provide VCT services to 4,277 people, distribute 9,000 condoms, and support Post Test Clubs caring and supporting 172 PLWA and 507 OVCs.
• Conduct community mobilization and “role modelling” for girls’ education in 81 villages wherein education committees were also established. Murusi Community Education Fund supported 17 students at O’ level.
• Train 1,320 leaders in food and nutrition security planning skills; train 1,680 women and local government leaders in gender responsive planning, budgeting, reporting, and auditing, and to support 180 women leaders to engage with local government officials in local government planning processes.
• Strengthen the capacities of partner community groups through 150 trainings in book-keeping, M+E, and gender issues and 5 District Network quarterly meetings to promote co-learning and engagement with LLGs.
• At AFARD level to inaugurate new Board members; initiate a pilot business development wing; recruit 11 additional staffs and professionally train 7 staffs; revise the financial guidelines and monitoring and reporting system; and procure additional assets.

Financial Implications                                                   

Figure 1: Expenditure Centers: In the year, we generated UGX 5.1 Billion. Overall 92% of the funds came from donor such as Gorta, Irish Aid, European Commission, Civil Society Fund, Manos Unidas, African Evangelistic Enterprise, and FAO (Uganda office). About 89% was spent as is shown below.

Changes in Beneficiaries’ Aspirations

Figures 2 below provide a quick snapshot of some key outcomes of our work as was verified by the Monitoring, Reporting, Accountability and Learning (MRAL) Tool exercise conducted in December 2011 among all the beneficiary households under West Nile Development Initiative and Increasing West Nile Smallholder Farmers’ Agricultural Productivity.