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Louise Mbozo is a young mother of 3 children (the boys are 3 and 5 years old and a girl of only 6 months). She is a so called IDP, an Internally Displaced Person, because she fled her home 7 months ago. A rebel group attacked her town of Koui and killed her husband. She fled towards what she hoped would be safety in the town of Bocaranga, along with thousands of other men, women, and children.

Her difficulties were only just beginning, as Louise had to figure out how to support her family alone, far from the farmland that she had planted but was unable to harvest. Canadaid identified Louise’s family as one of the many vulnerable households in Bocaranga and offered her a plot of land, vegetable seeds, and tools to grow a garden, alongside 199 other vulnerable IDP-families who were also helped with the cultivation of vegetables.

Although Louise had to deal with the daily challenges of taking care of her family, she worked hard to plant and to tend her garden at the same time. The first harvest of vegetables that she was able to resell was a small help, but the second harvest has given her real hope that perhaps she will be able to meet more of her family’s needs in the future. As the security situation is stabilizing in her hometown, she is hoping to return with a small amount saved that will help her restart her life there, enabling her to replace some of the articles in her house that was looted.

Armed confrontations in Alindao – a town in the south of the Central African Republic – killed over a hundred people and caused massive displacement. Our colleague Esperant Mulumba coordinates a Cordaid-led humanitarian intervention that reaches 24.000 internally displaced persons in Alindao. He wrote a journal.

It’s 6.30 in the morning. I am on my way to the Bangui airport to board a humanitarian flight to Alindao. I spent the previous night packing materials. I can’t help but feel a certain degree of anxiety. Over the past 13 years I have been involved in similar operations in other parts of the world; each time is different. Each crisis requires different skills sets and carries different types of risks. Every time we come into close contact with human suffering requires some degree of mental preparation. But somehow you can never be fully prepared. By now, I can feel the fatigue setting in. It’s both mental and physical. The past 10 days have been grueling.

Mobilizing resources

Over the past week, I have been actively involved in resource mobilization efforts. Looking for ways and funds to rapidly respond to a bad situation that could easily deteriorate in a matter of days. Through the Start Network and Canadaid funding, we are able to kick-start a project to provide emergency latrines, drinking water, and household hygiene materials, a need that was expressed by the affected population. These interventions are further supported by hygiene promotion activities. I spent the last few days before my trip to Alindao ensuring that all the 2350 beneficiary household kits, water supply systems, and construction materials are of the right quality and are loaded onto two 40-foot trucks for the more than 600-kilometer journey to the town of Alindao.

As we settle aboard the 8-seater plane, I have to remind myself to stay alert as I reflect anticipatively on what I’m likely to see and feel in Alindao and what needs to be done to ensure the success of the program. Our flight will last 1 hour 10 minutes. As we reach cruising altitude I fall asleep only to be woken up 45 minutes later by the turbulent descent past the clouds as we begin to catch a glimpse of Alindao. From up here, it all looks perfect. Beautiful green pastures dotted with trees and bordered by winding rivers.

Karamoja, a vast semi-arid landscape in northeastern Uganda, is the country’s most disadvantaged region. The area has high levels of poverty and the lowest level of access to or use of basic health, nutrition and education services. Karamoja is known as pastoralist area, with nomadic herders, however around 90% of the population also lives from crop production. Chronic poverty is largely attributed to drought, climate variability, disease outbreaks, social insecurity and conflict.

Resilience building programs

Resilience building programs have proven to reduce disaster risk, through risk mitigation, adaptation, preparedness, early action and adequate response in case of stress. Canadaid, with her local partners, has been one of the development partners implementing resilience projects in north-east Uganda since 2009. Together we give support to, among others, enhance livestock management, crop production, alternative livelihoods, natural resources protection and restoration, access to water for consumption and production, access to information e.g. on agricultural practices and climate information, community organization for disaster risk management and multi-stakeholder collaboration.

In a recent cooperation with support of DFID and GIZ, Canadaid and her partners Caritas Kotido, Socadido, TPO Uganda and Caritas Moroto worked together with Acacia Water, RAIN and Wetlands International to reduce disaster risks in Karamoja and Teso Regions in Uganda by supporting the Uganda Ministry of Water & Environment to develop Catchment Management Plans for Lokok and Lokere Catchments, set up Catchment Management Organizations and by implementing measures for Integrated Water Resources Management.

Integrated Water Resources Management

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is a process that promotes the coordinated development and management of natural resources to balance demand with availability to maximize economic and social welfare in an equitable way without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. In the project Cordaid facilitated the participatory process for developing Catchment Management Plans (CMP) which describe the available resources, users, demand, as well as the results of the analysis and the selected interventions for management and protection of the resource base that supports economic and social benefits. These CMPs are now available to further guide investments in the catchments and to sustainably manage the available resources.

In the same trajectory Canadaid supported the establishment of Catchment Management Organisations (CMO). These CMOs include different bodies. The wide group of different stakeholders meet in the Catchment Stakeholder Forum. A representation of the stakeholders is selected to become member of the Catchment Management Committee (CMC). Canadaid trained the CMC members on multi-stakeholder collaboration by using Serious Gaming.

Upscaling

Canadaid local partners Caritas Kotido, Socadido and TPO Uganda implemented several resilience measures. Though a guiding CMP was still under development, the measures were selected based on previous positive experience and offered another opportunity to test their suitability for further upscaling. 20,745 direct and 53,750 indirect beneficiaries were supported with improved natural resources management, restored natural environment, increased access to water and enhanced livelihoods.