Amidst the ongoing food insecurity crisis in some areas of the Karamoja sub-region, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations World Food Programme, and the Office of the Prime Minister have convened a meeting with District Local Government Leaders in the Karamoja sub-region to discuss multi-hazard early warning and early action systems strengthening, a move aimed at increasing resilience to shocks and stresses of food insecure populations living in Karamoja.

The orientation meeting, convened under the auspices of the “Strengthening Shock Responsive Systems in Karamoja” (PRO-ACT) project, is a collaboration between the Department of Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Management of the Office of the Prime Minister, FAO, and WFP funded by the European Union Directorate-General for International Partnerships and DANIDA, targeting all nine districts of Karamoja sub-region.

While implementation of PRO-ACT has been ongoing since September 2020 in all the nine (9) districts of Karamoja, some district leaders were recently transferred to the sub-region, hence the need to orient them on the various programs implemented by Government and non-Government/state actors in the sub-region. The meeting, therefore, aims to orient the Resident District Commissioners (RDCs), Chief Administrative Chief Officers (CAOs), and District Chairpersons on PRO-ACT and to strengthen project engagement with District Local Governments.

The project, in its second year of implementation, aims to strengthen the Government of Uganda’s capacity to reduce, anticipate and rapidly respond to the effects of shocks and sustain climate-resilient rural development in an integrated manner through; 

• Strengthened national and local stakeholders' capacity to generate and disseminate accurate, timely, and actionable early warning information;
• Improved local and national systems and capacity to effectively prepare for and mitigate the impact of shocks on food security and nutrition based on early warning information;
• Communities and households in Karamoja benefit from anticipatory and early actions that contribute to strengthening their resilience to shocks and stresses; and
• Shock-affected households in Karamoja benefit from early response to food crises. 

According to the FAO Representative in Uganda, Mr Antonio Querido, the district political leadership plays a strong role in the dissemination of early warning information and design and implementation of forecast-based anticipatory actions at the community level and therefore should be an integral part of the project implementation. 

Karamoja has in the last two years, witnessed multiple disasters, including public health emergencies and natural disasters ranging from flooding and landslides to desert locust invasions and most recently prolonged dry spells and zoonotic and animal disease outbreaks.

“Two years of crop failure (2020 and 2021), compounded with increased insecurity and the impact of the war in Ukraine, have resulted in heightened food insecurity characterized by lack of food, limited food access, high negative coping mechanisms, and exhaustion of food stocks including seed stock,” said Querido, in his remarks delivered by the PRO-ACT Project Coordinator, Mr Dominique Reumkens.

He also noted that in order to prevent or reduce the impact of such disasters in the future, it is essential to address the root causes of food insecurity and undernutrition in Karamoja, including multiple risks from shocks and stressors and related vulnerabilities.

“Anticipation and responding early to mitigate the impact of a shock is the center of the solution. This requires us to shift our focus from responding to shocks after they have already happened to be able to anticipate an increased risk and act before it happens,” he said.

This shift, however, according to Querido, requires intentional investments in strengthening early warning efforts at the national and community levels to capture real-time evidence to monitor an evolving risk with practical indicators to allow anticipatory and early decision-making to take action to reduce the impact of an impending shock before needs peak.

In the first two years of the project implementation, the project was able to establish an early warning system for drought, which is now producing monthly drought early warning that is disseminated to stakeholders to enable informed and early decision-making aligned to district contingency plans in partnership with District Local Governments. This information is further disseminated to communities and informs on actions they can take to prepare for a drought.

The Assistant Commissioner in Charge of Programs, in the Ministry of Karamoja Affairs under the Office of the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Ameny appreciates the PRO-ACT project saying that it is timely, relevant, and informative in nature, to guide anticipatory action and early decision-making.

“The project is helping us to project hazards; it is evidence-based and provides timely and accurate information. As the government, we are now discussing the utilization of the information for timely and effective responses at national, district, sub-county, and household levels,” said Ameny while speaking at the event.

He also advised the project implementers to broaden the scope of dissemination to include other political leaders such as the Members of Parliament, and Ministers, in addition to technical officers and district leaders from the project districts.

The Chief Administrative Officer, Moroto District Mr Charles Komaketch, described the project as an excellent avenue for disaster-prone areas like Karamoja, which provides a mechanism to anticipate the hazards but also gives opportunities to respond to disasters before they happen.

“Over the last few years, the frequency, intensity, and the number of disasters have increased in Karamoja, threatening the livelihoods of communities. Thanks to this project, today we have reliable information that enables us to plan our response and act early before disaster hits us in the face. The monthly bulletins predict what is likely to happen in time. This has helped us to reduce the uncoordinated and ad-hoc response,” he said.

With the new contribution from the EU, the project is expanding the early warning system to include floods, animal and crop pests, and diseases, in addition to testing various sectoral early actions when triggered by the early warning system. 

“In that regard, we are currently preparing a vaccination campaign against amongst others FMD that will be delivered in partnership with MAAIF and national authorities, to increase local capacity and national ownership of the actions. This action will safeguard productive livestock assets and help to avoid negative coping mechanisms of households in Karamoja, due to the current food security situation and impending hazards,” says Mr. Reumkens.

For the longer-term sustainability of the intervention, critical aspects are ownership by national and local stakeholders, as well as adequate financing and institutionalization of preparedness across stakeholders.

Participants at the meeting included Resident District Commissioners (RDCs), District Chairpersons, and Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs) from all the nine (9) Karamoja districts, ministry of Karamoja affairs, Office of the Prime Minister (OPM/NECOC), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), amongst others.