Uganda as a country faces a number of socio-cultural, economic and political challenges, which perpetuate high levels of poverty and inequality. This limits participation of vulnerable groups, particularly women, youth and pastoralists in economic decisions that affect them. It limits their access to opportunities and resources, and makes them more prone to risks, shocks and other vulnerabilities.
Oxfam works to ensure that vulnerable women, youth, marginalised men and other vulnerable groups in a range of Ugandan livelihood settings are economically empowered and enjoy their rights to food as well as have increased incomes.
We empower women with information on their land & seed rights so that they can push for the formulation and implementation of gender sensitive policies that enable them access to and control over economic resources.
We campaign on issues of climate change with the aim of strengthening women food producers and achieving resilience in communities to the effects of climate change.
We address youth employment through vocational and life skills, training and mentorship while lobbying for changes in the education system.
We conduct research on issues like unpaid care work that hinders women from being economically engaged and use the evidence to push for practice changes.
Oxfam is focused on addressing the following;
Policy gaps. The Focus is on influencing the formulation and implementation of relevant policies. Interest is on the participation of women and youth as well as on attitude change of the rights holders towards economic realities in the country. Building on evidence from our programme footprints in greater north, we facilitate and engage at local, national as well as link with regional and global processes.
Markets & Value Chains. focuses on Influencing both market and non-market actors to provide an enabling environment for farmers and traders; strengthens market linkages between the different actors, promotes gender sensitive value chains, engages actors, including the private sector in promoting business models that benefit especially women and youth and builds capacity of farmers, pastoralists and agro pastoralists to produce for the market.
Gender inequalities. Strong focus is put on addressing the underlying factors of gender inequalities. Gender Action Learning System (GALS) methodology is integrated and scaled up to ensure that women's rights are at the center of all programming as well as to address the social hindrances to women’s participation in decision making over productive assets.
Campaigns to address violence against women at all levels are conducted and linked to regional and global efforts.
Natural Resource Constraints. Interventions in agriculture and livelihoods promote sustainable solutions to minimize the pressure on scarce resources such as water and land. We support advocacy for implementation of the national land policy with strong focus on women, youths and pastoralists.
Impact of Climate change. Increases resilience of the local communities, especially women, by promoting the range of livelihood options for the communities we work with. We promote Disaster Risk Reduction models that help vulnerable women, youth and men to ‘thrive’ in spite of the situation of uncertainty.
Youth Unemployment. Strives to increase productivity and opportunities for rural, urban and peri-urban youth living in the greater north through increased livelihood options by piloting innovative interventions that increase skills and facilitate access to new technologies including ICT to create employment opportunities for female and male youths. The intervention outcomes contribute to evidence for policy influencing at national level.
Projects
Active Projects
- Advancing the Leadership, Empowerment, Access, and Protection (LEAP) II of Women and Girls.
- Promoting the Leadership, Empowerment, Access, and Protection (LEAP) I of Women & Girls.
- Urban Food Hives
- Advocacy On Women's Land and Property Rights.
- Sowing Diversity = Harvesting Security II
- Resilience, Inclusiveness, Sustainability and Empowerment of Communities in Karamoja
- Combating Food Security Among Vulnerable Individuals and Households in Terego and Zombo
Past Projects
- Youth Engagement and Empowerment Project (YEEP)
- Cassava Applied Research for Food Security in Northern Uganda
- Sowing Diversity= Harvesting Security (SD=HS)
- Empower @ Scale
Partners
- Resource Rights Africa (RRA)
- National Association of Women of Uganda (NAWOU),
- CARITAS Moroto
- The Uganda Apiculture Development Organisation (TUNADO)
- International Land Coalition (ILC)
- Community Integrated Development Initiatives (CIDI)
- JERO Farm
- Prindex
- Landesa
- Global Land Alliance
- Hivos
- The International Foundation for Recovery and Development (IFRAD)
- Agency for Community Empowerment (AFCE)
- Youth Social Advocacy Team ( Y-SAT)
- African Youth Development Link (AYDL)
- Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF)
- Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM)
Donors
- Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)
- Irish Aid
- Oxfam International
- Oxfam US
- European Union
- Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)
- The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)