Uganda

Uganda is in East Africa, bordered by Kenya to the east, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to the west, South Sudan to the north, Tanzania to the south, and Rwanda to the southwest.

Known as the Pearl of Africa, Uganda is gifted with fantastic natural scenery and a rich mix of tribes and cultures. Wildlife is protected within vast National Parks and numerous game sanctuaries, but more than one-third of Uganda’s population lives on less than $1.90/day, leaving many people largely unable to escape poverty or absorb the shocks and stresses of life. Uganda is the top refugee-hosting country in Africa with 1.7 Million refugees and asylum seekers as of June 2024, mainly from South Sudan, DRC and Eritrea. The Uganda political framework is known to be one of the most progressive and inclusive towards refugees in the world. Further, Uganda has a young population, the country’s median age is 16.2.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has been working in Uganda since 1965 in partnership with the Government of Uganda, the local Catholic Church and national and international partners to reach the most vulnerable individuals across the entire country.

CRS Uganda Vision Statement

Empowered families reach their full potential and are resilient to external shocks in safe, just and inclusive communities, supported by effective local systems.

Program Strategy

To support CRS Global Strategy, CRS Uganda developed a long-term country program strategy after an in-depth internal and external analysis of key issues expected to impact the country over the next decade. The strategy will run through 2030 and be assessed midway.

CRS Uganda Strategy embraces five priority areas:

Health and Social Services System Strengthening

CRS focuses on health systems and leverages government and civil society partnerships to influence and strengthen the health and social services leadership, governance, and workforce at the sub-national level for the planning, delivery and monitoring of quality, inclusive, equitable and accountable health, and child protection services.

Uganda Family Care for Children (UFCC)

The Uganda Family Care for Children (UFCC) seeks to provide a framework for cooperation between organizations to catalyze care reform at scale in Uganda. This initiative will leverage synergies and existing relationships with the Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development (MGLSD) and other actors in the sector to promote a shared vision for care reform, and to foster collaboration to ensure a more coordinated and coherent approach to achieve care reform at scale in Uganda.

Location: Lwengo, Mbale, Wakiso districts

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Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Uganda

CRS supports government structures and systems to strengthen national and community-level efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change through nature-based solutions.

Restore Africa

CRS Uganda is leading a consortium of partners to implement the Restore Africa program in Uganda. The program is part of the larger Restore Africa Program that will restore 1.9 million hectares of land, supporting 1.5 million smallholder farming families across six countries - Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia. The commitment, first announced by the Global EverGreening Alliance with Climate Asset Management at COP26 in Glasgow is one of the largest land restoration programs in the world and will significantly contribute to the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), which aims to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030.

Location: 32 districts in Southwestern Uganda, Karamoja and Mt. Elgon regions

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Emergency Preparedness and Management

CRS strengthens communities in refugee-hosting and non-hosting districts to survive and thrive in the face of disasters, through the influence of, support for and collaboration with the Office of the Prime Minister, local government, and other key partners.

Hope to Home

Location: Kyangwali Refugee Settlement

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Preparing for Enhanced Protection in Disasters (PrEPD)

PrEPD was developed and tested as a comprehensive toolkit to guide humanitarian and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) actors to mainstream protection and accountability in disaster preparedness. The toolkit seeks to improve delivery of humanitarian assistance by contributing knowledge and lessons learned about protection mainstreaming in disaster response, tested in three distinct humanitarian environments.

Location: Mt. Elgon region - Mbale, Bududa, Sironko, Bulambuli, Butaleja, and Namisindwa districts

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Resilient Food Systems

CRS facilitates investment and innovation to build resilient food systems that remove constraints to productivity, build sustainability, boost product quality, and increase market access.

VINES

Vines is a five-year USDA-funded Food for Progress project designed to make Uganda the world’s next leading supplier of high-quality vanilla. The program works in key vanilla producing districts including Bundibugyo, Buikwe, Bunyangabo, Ibanda, Kasese, Mukono and Rubrizi and aims to aims to increase exports of Ugandan vanilla from 50 metric tonnes to 350 metric tonnes by the life of the project. In addition, Vines will directly transform the lives of 16,200 farmers, 836 supply chain actors and 25 processing companies, and will create over 15,820 new jobs.

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VINES Project Page

Local Leadership in Uganda

CRS Uganda continues to grow its footprint to strengthening communities and local institutions to effectively lead and create transformational and sustainable change. In 2022, CRS Uganda established a Partner Capacity Strengthening and Local Leadership (PCS/LL) unit with over 15 PCS agents who are subject matter experts in facilitating structured capacity strengthening in programs and operations for over 19 local institutions including the church, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private sector and government partners for effective delivery of humanitarian and development initiatives in the communities that we jointly serve.

As a signatory to the Grand Bargain and Charter for Change (C4C) in Uganda, CRS Uganda actively engages with the broader C4C network, including peer organizations, government of Uganda and local organizations to promote localization in humanitarian aid in advancement of the localization agenda. CRS provides regular technical assistance to C4C to support the geo-spatial mapping of NGOs and local actors in Uganda, a product which provides critical details on the partners to facilitate effective planning and decision making. CRS is committed to sharing global experience and local best practices to support the progress of C4C in Uganda.

Advancing Local Leadership in the Right Way (ALLRight):

Through efforts under the AllRight Fund, CRS seeks to accelerate and intensify its capacity strengthening initiatives to strategic partners including church, civil society, government and private sector to be effective, dynamic and sustainable catalysts for change for the communities served.

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CRS in Uganda Districts of Operation (2024)

Our Partners

• Association of the Religious Uganda
• CARE in Uganda
• Caritas – Moroto, Tororo, Fort Portal, Kasese, Hoima
• Child’s I Foundation
• ECOTRUST
• ICRAF
• Joint Efforts to Save the Environment (JESE)
• Uganda Land Care Network
• Vanilla Exporters of Uganda (VANEX)
• World Vision Uganda
• Young African Refugees for Integral Development (YARID)

Impact Evaluations

Uganda Country Program Library

Browse the full set of program documentation, lessons learned, and practitioner tools published by CRS in Uganda.

Tool Kits

Preparing to Enhance Protection in Disasters (PrEPD)

The PrEPD Document Library is a set of training materials designed to help practitioners increase their knowledge and understanding of safe and dignified programming and describe different ways to implement their programs.

Uganda Office Location: Nsambya Road, Kampala, P.O. Box 30086
Contact Information: [email protected] tell: +256 393 265658
Social Media: Follow @CRSUganda