UN Resident Coordinator in Uganda, Mr. Leonard Zulu, has concluded a three-day field mission to Northern Uganda to assess how the United Nations Cooperation Framework 2021–2025 has contributed to communities and draw lessons to inform implementation of the new Cooperation Framework 2026–2030.From 14 to 16 September, Mr. Zulu visited communities and UN-supported interventions in Kiryandongo, Lamwo and Adjumani, engaging with local authorities, communities, refugees and UN staff on the ground. The mission provided an opportunity to see first-hand how UN support is contributing to livelihoods, health, water and sanitation, nutrition, agriculture and protection, while identifying areas where interventions can be strengthened.A key lesson from the mission was the importance of connecting interventions across sectors and ensuring that programmes respond to the realities faced by communities. Discussions highlighted the need for continued attention to health and nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), emergency agriculture, mental health, gender-based violence and adolescent pregnancy, alongside support to strengthen livelihoods and resilience. In Kiryandongo, Settlement Commandant under the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), Mr. Vincent Amaruma, welcomed the UN team and called for partners to continuously reflect on how they can work collectively and efficiently despite limited resources. He also emphasized the need for refugee interventions to increasingly promote self-reliance rather than dependency.In Lamwo, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Mr. Samuel Logu stressed the importance of addressing food insecurity, noting that “a hungry stomach will do anything to survive; we need to take care of the food situation in this region.” The Lamwo Resident District Commissioner Mr. William Komakech also called for greater focus on mindset change to enable young people to engage in livelihood programmes and move away from destructive activities.The mission further highlighted the value of Uganda’s open-door refugee policy and the need for sustainable infrastructure and community-based approaches that can be expanded to reach more people. “Uganda’s open-door policy towards refugees remains important, but sustaining it will require continued partnership, investment and effective coordination,” Mr. Zulu said during the mission debrief.He also underscored the importance of ensuring that UN-supported initiatives have a clear purpose and generate lasting results for the people they serve. “Without clarity of purpose, valuable initiatives risk losing momentum or impact,” he said, emphasizing the need to communicate results and strengthen the sustainability of interventions.The lessons from the field mission will contribute to ongoing efforts to strengthen UN programming under the Cooperation Framework 2026–2030 and ensure that future support is increasingly responsive, coordinated and focused on sustainable impact.
 

Uganda is facing a worsening humanitarian crisis driven by climate shocks, large-scale refugee displacement, food insecurity, and increasing vulnerability among refugees and host communities, particularly in Karamoja and West Nile. In response, a US$75 million allocation from the United States to the Uganda Humanitarian Fund (UHF) has been distributed among three UN agencies and six international NGOs to deliver prioritized, lifesaving assistance in areas with the greatest needs. The allocation is coordinated by the United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office (RCO) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), with a focus on addressing malnutrition in Karamoja and supporting refugees and host communities in the Western and Northern regions and Kampala. The funding is supporting critical sectors including food security, health, nutrition, protection, shelter, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), while also advancing the Humanitarian Reset through more coordinated, efficient, accountable, multisectoral, and locally driven action to maximize the impact of limited resources.From 9–20 August, the OCHA Uganda-Kenya team together with the RCO, conducted a monitoring mission across Karamoja and West Nile to assess the impact of Uganda Humanitarian Fund (UHF)-supported projects. In West Nile, the team travelled through Palabek, Adjumani, Yumbe and Arua, visiting refugee settlements and reception centres and meeting district leaders, refugees and humanitarian partners. The mission highlighted how organizations including International Rescue Committee (IRC), Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and Danish Rescue Committee (DRC), working alongside government teams, are helping communities facing food insecurity, malnutrition, climate shocks and protection risks.Palabek – 13 AugustWomen's Safe Spaces and Protection Services Palabek, Uganda’s youngest refugee settlement, has received no new arrivals since June due to border restrictions linked to the Ebola outbreak. With an estimated 80 per cent of beneficiaries of some services being women, partners are providing critical protection, livelihoods, WASH and psychosocial support. At a women’s safe space in Zone 8, women described the centre as a place where they can seek counselling, report violence, receive referrals and access basic items such as soap, clothing and food. The centre also supports girls who miss school during menstruation by providing sanitary materials.

For Betty, a new arrival with no relatives in the settlement, the centre has provided more than material assistance. “I was stressed and could not sleep. I came here for counselling. I feel safe now,” she said. Women identified several gaps, including the lack of water at the centre, poor latrine conditions and the need for fencing to improve security.WASH and Community Protection LWF is constructing household latrines and supporting hygiene promotion, particularly for people with disabilities, older people and other extremely vulnerable individuals. However, residents reported severe water shortages, with only one borehole serving hundreds of households in parts of Zone 8. Long queues can mean spending several hours collecting water.Community-based protection structures are also playing an important role. Paralegals, community volunteers, psychosocial workers and GBV activists identify cases, provide basic support and refer more serious cases to specialised services. In June and July alone, two paralegals reported handling more than 30 community cases. Despite their contribution, volunteers highlighted transport challenges and the need for additional training. “Our work is about keeping children safe, supporting their wellbeing, and making sure families have the basics they need.” Felix Polyojara, Child Protection Officer, IRCAdjumani – 14 AugustReception and Protection for New arrivalsAdjumani hosts 19 refugee settlements and continues to provide life-saving assistance despite significant funding gaps. At the Nyumanzi reception centre, newly arrived refugees receive hot meals, accommodation, registration and protection screening, as well as psychosocial, health, GBV and child protection services. Although the centre was designed for stays of up to 72 hours, some people remain for as long as three weeks while awaiting onward movement. The centre currently accommodates around 800 people, with additional facilities under construction that will increase capacity. IRC child protection teams conduct rapid assessments and provide individual support to children arriving without caregivers. Since April, 83 unaccompanied or separated children have been identified as having relatives such as aunts or uncles, while seven had no known relatives.Women and girls’ safe spaces In Pagirinya settlement, women and girls can access psychosocial support, counselling, referrals and activities including baking, liquid soap-making and beadwork. Women said the centre has become an important place to share experiences and rebuild social connections. Women also highlighted the need for additional livelihood skills, including tailoring and sewing, and play materials for children accompanying them to the centre.Community Feedback and AccountabilityProtection desks in Boroli settlements receive and document community complaints, refer cases to specialised partners and follow up on responses. Food assistance remains the most common concern, accounting for around seven in ten complaints reported at the desk. Community volunteers have been trained to respond to complaints and help people understand available services. Protection cases are generally referred within a few days, depending on their nature. Yumbe – 17 AugustEstablished in 2016, Bidi Bidi is one of Uganda’s largest refugee settlements, covering around 250 square kilometres and hosting a large refugee population. As humanitarian funding declines, partners are increasingly supporting communities to move from emergency protection towards livelihoods and greater self-reliance. However, challenges remain, including limited access to land, food insecurity and heavy workloads for caseworkers.Supporting Caregivers and ChildrenParenting and caregiver sessions are helping refugees strengthen their knowledge of child rights, child health and positive parenting. Participants said the sessions have helped them manage stress and emotions, communicate better with their children and understand their responsibilities as caregivers. One participant living with a disability said the training had changed how she viewed and interacted with other people with disabilities.Cash Assistance for Critical NeedsCash assistance has helped vulnerable families meet urgent needs including food, education, shelter and health care.For 21-year-old Susan Aniba, support from DRC enabled her to return to school after she had feared her education was over. “At a time when I had lost hope and thought my education was finished, DRC gave me a chance to continue school. I am now determined to finish my studies, start a business and build a better future for myself.”
  Community leaders strengthening peaceful dispute resolution at Imvepi Refugee SettlementIn Imvepi settlement, humanitarian support is helping community leaders develop skills to resolve disputes peacefully and strengthen protection at community level. Thirty leaders received training in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), mediation and child protection. They now support communities in resolving disputes between refugees and host communities while referring serious protection cases, including rape, to specialised services. Leaders said the training has strengthened their ability to understand cases, remain neutral and mediate fairly. They also committed to passing their knowledge to others, including if they are not re-elected in forthcoming community elections. Participants called for further training to reach villages that were not represented in the initial sessions.
  Cash assistance helping families recoverCash support is helping families meet immediate needs while also investing in small livelihoods.“The support has helped me move from a very difficult situation to being able to provide food, clothes and basic needs for my children.” Selena Jengaa“The money has helped me start a small business by buying two piglets and two chickens, giving me a way to support my family.” Felix Lupai.“The cash support has helped us buy milk for the baby, pay school fees and buy goats, mattresses and uniforms. It has made a big difference for our family.” Tiu Kenzia Women and girls building skills and support networksAt a women and girls’ safe space, women affected by GBV, loss and other challenges access counselling, peer support and livelihood skills including tailoring, hairdressing, baking and soap-making. Women said counselling has helped them manage stress and anger, while skills training has given them confidence to explore ways of earning an income. The centre has also helped women establish a Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA), enabling participants to save together and invest in small businesses. However, a broken water supply is limiting activities such as soap-making. Women also requested stronger fencing and an additional safe space to reach villages currently without access. Looking aheadThe monitoring mission highlighted the importance of flexible, timely and sustained humanitarian funding to maintain essential services while strengthening community resilience. Across West Nile, refugees and host communities continue to face food insecurity, limited access to water and land, protection risks and reduced humanitarian assistance. At the same time, community-led structures, from women’s safe spaces and protection desks to trained paralegals, volunteers and community leaders, are demonstrating how locally rooted solutions can strengthen protection and resilience. As humanitarian needs continue to evolve, partners emphasised the need to maintain critical protection and basic services while investing in livelihoods, skills, accountability and peaceful coexistence between refugee and host communities. 

 

 

Uganda is facing a worsening humanitarian crisis driven by climate shocks, large-scale refugee displacement, food insecurity, and increasing vulnerability among refugees and host communities, particularly in Karamoja and West Nile. In response, a US$75 million allocation from the United States to the Uganda Humanitarian Fund (UHF) has been distributed among three UN agencies and six international NGOs to deliver prioritized, lifesaving assistance in areas with the greatest needs. The allocation is coordinated by the United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office (RCO) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), with a focus on addressing malnutrition in Karamoja and supporting refugees and host communities in the Western and Northern regions and Kampala. The funding is supporting critical sectors including food security, health, nutrition, protection, shelter, and WASH, while also advancing the Humanitarian Reset through more coordinated, efficient, accountable, multisectoral, and locally driven action to maximize the impact of limited resources.From 9–20 August, the OCHA Uganda-Kenya team, as well as the RCO, held a monitoring mission in Karamoja and West Nile, monitoring the impact of the Uganda Humanitarian Fund (UHF) on projects in the area. The Karamoja leg of the monitoring mission took the team through Moroto, Kotido and Kaabong, visiting WFP food stores, district leaders, health facilities and community outreach sites to see how humanitarian support is reaching communities facing food insecurity, malnutrition, climate shocks and insecurity. Partners including WFP, UNICEF and AFI are working alongside government health teams to deliver essential services to some of the region’s hardest-to-reach communities.Moroto – 10 AugustWFP Warehouse At the WFP warehouse in Moroto, supplies were being prepared for distribution to health facilities and outreach posts. Ready-to-use supplementary food (RUSF) and other nutrition commodities are planned and dispatched to reach communities as close to the last mile as possible. The system allows health teams to request additional supplies when cases are identified, with deliveries planned in advance to ensure that children enrolled in treatment do not run out of essential nutrition commodities. Staff reported that they had not experienced a situation where these commodities were unavailable. Moroto District Health Office

At the district health office, Dr. James Lemukol, the District Health Officer, described food insecurity, environmental and economic shocks and climate change as major drivers of malnutrition. The response has focused on rapidly expanding life-saving health and nutrition interventions, including door-to-door screening and outreach services. Since April, UNICEF, WFP, the Ministry of Health and district teams have worked together to train health workers and Village Health Teams, map outreach sites and strengthen data collection and monitoring. Five rounds of nutrition screening and outreach were carried out, reaching more children than initially targeted. But while the immediate response is helping children recover, health workers warned that the underlying conditions at household level remain a major concern.  “Children may improve while they are in the programme, but when they are discharged they fall back to the same circumstances,” Dr. Lemukol said. “The cycle could easily repeat again.” For families, food insecurity is closely linked to livelihoods. Local leaders said many households are struggling to find enough food, while drought and erratic weather have made farming increasingly difficult. Some families turn to mining and other forms of casual labour because they have few alternatives.Loputuk Health Center III At Loputuk Health Center III, Sister Lucy, who has worked at the facility for 36 years, described the challenges facing families in the surrounding communities. The lack of rain has left fields scorched and reduced food production. Acute malnutrition has traditionally peaked between November and May but changing weather patterns are making it harder to predict when families will face the greatest shortages.The health centre receives ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), supports community outreach and screens children for malnutrition. It serves 12 outreach sites, including hard-to-reach communities. Between April and July 2026, the facility participated in three mass-screening cycles, reaching 4,923 children under five. The screenings identified children with moderate and severe acute malnutrition and connected them to treatment and supplementary feeding programmes.Over the same period, the prevalence of acute malnutrition in Loputuk sub-county fell from 18.1 per cent in the first round to 6.8 per cent in the fifth. But the health centre itself faces constraints, including limited space and storage. Staff also highlighted the need for greater support to community volunteers who play a critical role in reaching families beyond the facility.Lorikokwa Outreach SiteAt Lorikokwa, health services are brought directly to the community. Supported by UNICEF, WFP and AFI, the outreach team provides nutrition screening and treatment alongside health education on nutrition, malaria prevention, sanitation and hygiene. Community members are also shown how to prepare nutritious foods using locally available ingredients. Women attending the outreach site shared that malnutrition is inseparable from the wider struggle to put food on the table. Many households rely on casual work, selling firewood or charcoal, collecting water, cleaning houses, washing dishes or carrying bricks. Others try to grow sorghum, beans, maize, pumpkin and other crops, but unreliable rainfall can destroy the harvest. Some families eat only once a day when food is scarce. Others said that although food is available in markets, they do not have enough money to buy it.Women also described sharing specialized nutrition products with other children in the household when there is nothing else to eat.Kaabong – 11 AugustKopoth Health Center III In Kaabong, the same pressures are evident. At Kopoth Health Centre III, health workers described a deteriorating food security situation, with some families increasingly relying on gold mining to survive. The community is also affected by prolonged drought, crop failure, cattle raiding and insecurity. These challenges are closely connected to other risks facing children, including school dropout and child labour. Health workers stressed the importance of timely humanitarian support and continued investment in nutrition services.Nakatapan Outpost – Lolelia SouthFurther into Lolelia South, the team visited Nakatapan health outpost, serving 18 villages and more than 9,500 people. Here, health workers provide a range of services, from nutrition screening and immunization to malaria prevention, sanitation and hygiene education. Families are taught practical measures such as safe food preparation, drying food on racks and improving hygiene in the home. The outreach team also demonstrated locally produced supplementary foods. Andre Foods International (AFI) is developing a biscuit made from locally available ingredients as an alternative way of supporting children with moderate acute malnutrition. Yet families still face major barriers to accessing services. Some travel for hours to reach the health post, while others have to walk long distances to collect water. Community dialogue with women receiving nutrition supportDuring a discussion with women enrolled in the supplementary feeding programme, participants described the difficult choices families make when food runs out. Some women said they leave home early in the morning and walk for several hours to reach the health facility. Others said they rely on mining to earn money for food, sometimes taking their children with them. At home, many had planted beans, cassava, groundnuts, sorghum, sesame and vegetables, but much of the harvest had wilted because of the lack of rain. One of the most immediate concerns was simply what the family would eat that evening. Water is another major challenge. Some families reported spending up to two hours walking to collect it. Communities said they wanted health and water services closer to where they live, as well as better access to schools and maternity services. Looking beyond the immediate responseThe Karamoja mission ended with a debrief highlighting both the gains made and the work still needed. Outreach services have expanded access to life-saving nutrition screening, treatment and immunization, and essential nutrition commodities have remained available. But the needs on the ground remain greater than the current response.One concern is that children can relapse after completing treatment if their families return to the same conditions of food insecurity. There is therefore a need to look beyond treating malnutrition and address the household and community factors that cause it. Water, sanitation and hygiene also remain critical gaps, alongside the need for better communication with communities, stronger follow-up and continued support for Village Health Teams. For Douglas Lubowa, UNICEF Social and Behaviour Change Officer covering Kaabong and Moroto, the region needs solutions that go beyond responding to each new crisis. “We keep coming back to this place, we make progress, and then climate change sets communities back again. We need to find sustainable ways to help people build livelihoods and become more resilient.” That resilience is what communities themselves are asking for: reliable access to food and water, better roads and health services, sustainable livelihoods and opportunities for children to remain in school.The humanitarian response is helping save lives today. The longer-term challenge is to make sure those gains endure, and that communities in Karamoja have the resources, services and opportunities they need to withstand the next shock. 
 


 
 
 

Uganda held a two-day national validation of its Vulnerability Profile, an important step in preparing for the country’s anticipated graduation from the United Nations Least Developed Countries (LDC) category.The workshop, organised by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in collaboration with UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), brought together government, the United Nations, private sector, civil society, academia and development partners to review Uganda’s structural vulnerabilities and agree on priority actions for a smooth transition.Uganda first met the criteria for LDC graduation in March 2024. If the country sustains this progress at the next triennial review in March 2027, it is anticipated that Uganda could graduate in 2032, following the required five-year preparatory period. Speaking at the workshop, the UN Resident Coordinator in Uganda, Leonard Zulu, said graduation should be viewed as an opportunity to accelerate Uganda’s broader transformation.“Graduation should become a catalyst for broader economic transformation, rather than simply a change in international classification.”The Vulnerability Profile highlights areas requiring continued attention to ensure that Uganda remains on a positive development trajectory, including productive capacity, resilience to shocks, human capital, quality jobs and inclusive and sustainable development. It also underscores the importance of strong partnerships as Uganda prepares for the transition. The Minister of State for Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Hon. Shartsi Kutesa Musherure, said Uganda’s focus must now be on ensuring that economic growth delivers tangible benefits for its people.“The challenge is no longer simply growing the economy but ensuring that growth translates into jobs, household incomes, enterprise development and prosperity for every Ugandan.”The validation was aimed atstrengthening national ownership of the Vulnerability Profile and help translate its findings into a clear, sequenced policy agenda aligned with Uganda’s Fourth National Development Plan and the Tenfold Growth Strategy.For the United Nations, the process is an opportunity to support Uganda in building a more inclusive, resilient and prosperous economy as it moves towards and beyond LDC graduation.