USAID-Uganda Partnership

On October 9, Uganda marked 50 years of independence from British rule. During celebrations in Kampala, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni unveiled a new 10-point plan to transform Uganda into a middle-income country. The 10-point plan aims to facilitate private sector-led growth, modernize the agriculture sector, and deepen democratic governance, among other objectives. One of the fastest-growing economies in sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda could reach middle-income status within the next ten years, according to the World Bank. Yet while robust economic growth over the last two decades has lifted millions of its citizens out of poverty, Uganda remains among the poorest countries in the world. In its 2011 Human Development Index, the UN Development Program ranked Uganda 161st out of 187 countries. Last month, the Ugandan Health Ministry revealed that the East African nation is likely to fall short of its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health. Uganda is on target to meet the first MDG of halving poverty and hunger by 2015. In its 2011-15 country development cooperation strategy for Uganda, the U.S. Agency for International Development reaffirms Washington’s development partnership with Kampala. The fifth largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda is a focus country for each of the Obama administration’s marquee global development initiatives: Feed the Future, the Global Health Initiative and the Global Climate Change Initiative. USAID has been working in Uganda since the East African nation gained its independence in 1962. Funding levels For fiscal 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama has requested $438.3 million in U.S. foreign assistance to Uganda, down five percent from fiscal 2012. The United States is Uganda’s largest bilateral donor. In 2010, USAID delivered 70 percent of U.S. official development assistance to Uganda while about 26 percent of U.S. ODA to Uganda was channeled through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Funding priorities (fiscal 2013 request) For fiscal 2013, the health sector is slated to garner 84 percent of U.S. foreign assistance to Uganda. USAID Uganda manages programming for each of the U.S. government’s core global health initiatives: the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Global Health Initiative and the President’s Malaria Initiative. The vast majority of U.S. global health assistance to Uganda continues to be channeled through PEPFAR. Since 2005, PEPFAR has disbursed $1.7 billion in support of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care programming in Uganda. Currently, more than 300,000 Ugandans are receiving treatment through the initiative. Michael Strong, PEPFAR’s Uganda coordinator, recently told the Associated Press that the initiative is set to shift its focus in the East African country from service delivery to technical assistance. Investments under the Global Health Initiative in Uganda prioritize accelerating reductions in maternal and newborn mortality and facilitating the consolidation of a formal and community health system. Launched in May 2009, GHI aims to better coordinate, integrate and synergize U.S. global health assistance. While allocated only nine percent of the fiscal 2013 U.S. foreign aid budget for Uganda, the agriculture sector is also a priority for USAID in the East African country. In its country development cooperation strategy for Uganda, USAID emphasizes the role of agricultural development in promoting economic growth. Over the next five years (2012-17), USAID Uganda activities under Feed the Future, the Obama administration’s global hunger and food security initiative, are expected to include: - Therapeutic and Supplementary Products for Improved Nutrition or TASPIN (est. $22 million over 5 years): To facilitate the sustainable local production and distribution of nutritious and therapeutic foods. - Commodity Production and Marketing Activity (est. $20.5 million over 5 years): To improve efficiency in coffee, maize, and bean value chains by increasing crop productivity, by increasing the availability and effectiveness of support services, by strengthening buyer-seller relationships to facilitate the movement of products and information, and by increasing access to competitive markets. Devex analysis Slated to be the fifth largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in sub-Saharan Africa in fiscal 2013, Uganda continues to be one of America’s most significant development partners in the region. A recent upsurge in U.S.-Ugandan cooperation against the rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), confirms that Washington’s strategic imperatives for its bilateral relationship with Kampala remain strong. However, the Obama administration’s public reservations over the Ugandan government’s human rights record could become a thorn in USAID’s partnership with Kampala. Amid deliberations in the Ugandan parliament over a controversial anti-homosexuality bill, in December 2011, Obama instructed U.S. aid agencies to consider host countries’ treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people when making funding decisions. Last week, Uganda’s speaker of parliament pledged that the anti-homosexuality bill would become law by the end of the year. Final passage of the bill – which has been strongly condemned by Obama – may prompt the administration to reevaluate the size and scope of its aid program in the East African country. Some administration officials have previously warned that current levels of U.S. foreign assistance to Uganda will be unsustainable in the long run.