Northern Karamoja Growth, Health and Governance (GHG) Project Funded by USAID/Food for Peace (FFP) Quarter 7 Report: January 1 – March 31, 2014 COUNTRY CONTACT HEADQUARTERS CONTACT PROJECT SUMMARY Name: Sean Granville-Ross Name: Nate Oetting Award No. AID-FFP-A-12-00006 Country Director Senior Program Officer Start Date July 19, 2012 Plot 1102 Nsambya 45 SW Ankeny End Date July 18, 2017 PO Box 32021 Clock Tower Portland, Oregon, USA Report Date Jan - March 2014 Kampala, Uganda Phone: +256 414 501 014 Phone: +1(503) 796-6800 Total Award $ 52,116,900 Fax: +256 414 501 011 Fax: +1 (503) 796-6844 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] 1 1. Program Overview The 1.2 million inhabitants of the Karamoja sub-region of northeastern Uganda face a slow crisis produced by the breakdown of their traditional agro-pastoralist livelihood strategy, repeated climactic shocks and ongoing insecurity from cattle raiding. The decay of social norms and institutions, such as elder authority and the meaningful, active role of young men and women in tribal culture, inevitably accompany the crisis, as does malnutrition for children, high rates of gender based violence, and gender inequality. It is difficult to overstate the challenges facing the Karamojong. Those challenges are, however, matched by opportunities for long-term development with the potential for significant impact on the food insecure. Since 2010, four successive large harvests have filled village granaries in many areas, and the security situation is improving thanks to successful military and NGO disarmament and peacebuilding efforts. Although pockets of severe food insecurity persist (particularly in Kaabong district), in recognition of the sub-region’s overall development, emergency humanitarian efforts are scaling down, leaving a gap for more development-focused interventions to fill. There is a peace dividend waiting to be realized in Karamoja. The Northern Karamoja Growth, Health and Governance (GHG) project was designed to capitalize on this pivotal moment through a range of economic, health, and governance initiatives that will cement the gains from increased security and build a foundation for broader self-sufficiency, while well targeted food aid for pregnant and lactating women and children under the age of two hastens the process of transition from decades of food aid by filling nutrition deficits in highly food insecure households. GHG’s geographical focus includes the northernmost three Karamojong districts of Kaabong, Kotido and Abim, home to approximately 540,000 individuals. The GHG consortium pulls several complementary capacities into one coherent, unified approach, embodied in the facilitative approach that pushes local actors out front to sustainably provide the products (e.g., seeds and energy) and services (e.g., land opening, animal husbandry, transport, security, finance and healthcare) that make life productive and meaningful in the 21st century. As the consortium lead, Mercy Corps takes overall responsibility for the development of GHG’s facilitative strategy as well as the quality of all programming implemented by the project. Mercy Corps also implements all economic programming and employs a fulltime Gender 2 Advisor to ensure that an understanding of Karamoja’s complicated gender dynamics are incorporated into all activities. World Vision Inc. (WV), with its robust commodity management and public health qualifications, is leading supplementary feeding activities, community-level public health initiatives, and water, sanitation and hygiene programming. An extraordinarily knowledgeable local partner, Kaabong Peace and Development Agency (KAPDA), constitutes the spear tip for GHG’s conflict management and governance activities, working primarily through local formal and informal authority structures to bolster local systems for conflict reduction and government service improvement. Lastly, Tufts University’s Feinstein International Center (FIC) is charged with performing annual impact evaluations using its community-focused Participatory Impact Assessment methodology that will help the rest of the consortium partners understand the impact (or lack thereof) of their work. 2. Updates by Strategic Objective a. SO1: Pro-Poor Market Development Financial Access In an effort to improve the financial service landscape in Karamoja, Mercy Corps has partnered with Uganda Cooperative Savings and Credit Union (UCSCU) and jointly developed a detailed action plan to build the capacity of seven SACCOs. During the first round of trainings, UCSCU focused lessons on credit management, which reached 20 people (7 women, 13 men). The training provided SACCO management (chair person, managers, and loan committees) with a good understanding of credit management policy, development of loan approval authorization matrices, delinquency management, process of lending and loan data recording system to efficiently run and improve SACCO performance. UCSCU’s continued support has also helped SACCOs to have a fully functioning operational structure. For the first time, all partner SACCO records are updated with different ledgers such as savings, cash, loans and members’ ledgers. Likewise all appropriate management structures are in place and accountable to their members. Case Study Mr. Eliah Longole, Manager Nakapilimoru SACCO, said that they were on the verge of collapsing as their portfolio at risk was nearly 100% and members were starting to drop out. However, their partnership with GHG and particularly the capacity building support they received from UCSCU significantly turned things around. In the past one month alone, default rates reduced to 32 percent and savings increased from UGX 8 million to UGX 14,069,700UGX. Operational self-sufficiency also increased to 78 percent from 0 percent, according to GHG’s internal capacity rating, which now helps them to cover their operational expenses. This progress has renewed confidence among members of the SACCO who have begun to save again. In addition, the SACCO has recruited 22 new members. Currently membership is at 210. “This is really an impressive start and with continued support from UCSCU and GHG we are confident that we can fully stand by our feet and become one of the strong financial service sectors in the district.” –Mr. Eliah Longole Equity Bank visited the seven SACCOs to look for possible partnership opportunities. If this partnership is realized then it will lead to accessibility of financial services to the unbanked and poor communities in which GHG is operating. 3 Agricultural inputs With the rainy season fast approaching, the agro-input team has continued to engage with retailers to help link them with UNADA and build their capacity on basic business skills needed to run agro-input related businesses. At the time of writing this report, 24 business people received a five-day training on business management. The training is delivered by UNADA and is expected to enhance capacity of retailers to have good understandings of business planning and management skills. Fifteen input retailers have established their own agent networks to help them aggregate demand at the grassroots level. On average, each retailer has four agents and in total GHG has facilitated the establishment of 59 agents in the distribution network. In addition to aggregating demand, some of the agents can be considered as model farmers as they will establish demo plots useful for learning purposes for a wider community. In this reporting period, eight retailers out of 15 have placed orders with national seed companies to procure different varieties of improved seeds that are suitable to the Karamoja agro-ecology zone. These retailers mobilized UGX 7.5 million and ordered a total of 2.2MT of assorted seeds form NASECO and PEARL national seed suppliers. Several agro input shops – selling improved seed varieties to small-holder farmers – were opened during the reporting period, the first of their kind in Karamoja. Despite a relatively small quantity of improved seeds procured by retailers for this agricultural season, it is a positive sign, and indication of significantly more sales in the future. For this season we estimate that over 5,500 farmers will buy improved seeds from retailers to cover over 8,000 acres of land. Exact information on numbers of beneficiaries and hectares cultivated will be reported in the next quarter. Among the many challenges confronted by the ago-input activity, ongoing free handouts of seeds by other actors have discouraged retailers from ordering large volumes of inputs for fear of lower demand. Animal Health During the quarter representatives from Norbrook (U) Ltd, the largest supplier of animal vaccines and medicines in Uganda, visited Karamoja and met with local businesses, CAHWs and livestock owners. That visit and the provision of essential market information by the GHG animal health team convinced Norbrook to jump at the opportunity to serve the Karamojong livestock market, and as a result, Norbrook made its first delivery of veterinary medicine to two drug distributors/retailers in northern Karamoja with a UGX 10 million credit extension and at factory price payable in one month. JICAHWA drug shop (Kotido) received supplies worth UGX 8,923,879. Of this, UGX 5,923,879 was on credit while UGX 3 million was cash on delivery. The other agrovet partner, Sago Vets (Abim) received veterinary medicine worth UGX 4,793,789 on credit. Delivery of veterinary medicines at factory/whole sale prices has advantages