EMBASSIES PARTNER WITH CSOs TO PROMOTE ACCOUNTABILITY, CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN WEST NILE

Ambassadors, West Nile leaders and CSOs officials after the official launch of the partnership. Photo by Sabir Musa

By Sabir Musa

Arua City

Four Embassies in Uganda have teamed-up to support West Nile based Civil Society Organizations in the implementation of projects that promotes accountability, civic engagement and human rights.

The Danish Embassy, Embassy of Sweden, Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands and Embassy of Ireland will directly support Rural Initiative for Community Empowerment (RICE) West Nile and Community Empowerment for Rural Development (CEFORD), and these will equally support other organizations in West Nile to implement projects in 12 districts of region.

The Danish Ambassador to Uganda, Signe Winding Albjerg, described the partnership as relief to Civil Society Organizations for successful implementation of programs that support the communities.

“As much as we are very different countries, we have different priorities, we are also extremely like-minded and we are all long standing friends and partners of Uganda, and we have decided to join this support this partnership, partly to work closely together and partly also to relieve the burden of Ugandan Civil Society Organizations” she said.

The Regional Partnership for West Nile was launched on Wednesday September 4, 2024 at Hotel Le Confidentiel in Arua District, an event attended by Ambassadors of all the 4-countries and leaders of West Nile based Civil Society Organizations.

The Chairperson of West Nile Development Association (WENDA), Williams Anyama, welcomes this partnership, stating that it will boost capacity of the organizations for sustainability. “We are grateful that you are building their capacities. This is very good approach because for sustainable development, we need to build the capacity of local partners” the Chairperson commended.

In the partnership, RICE West Nile will lead Friends of Zoka and Space for a 4-years project on climate justice to be implemented in Adjumani, Obongi, Madi-Okollo and Zombo District.

The Executive Director of RICE West Nile, Pax Sakari, said, this is an opportunity for them to support districts and lower local governments to address several challenges that they are facing in mitigating climate related issues. “We are going to support these districts and sub counties to ensure that we do the right thing” the ED stated, adding that it’s with the knowledge that a lot of depletion of environment is done in the region.

Although the target partnership is to cover whole country, priority is given to West Nile and Karamoja sub-regions; the same partnership was also launched in Karamoja in May this year.