Written by EDITOR

About 40 districts in Uganda's north and eastern regions, have a chance to smile and prepare themselves for big things following a US$140 million project that will revitalize this formerly war-torn area.

For over two decades this area of over 10 million people, experienced war and insecurity, displacement of people, animals, loss of property and trauma.

It was home to over 10 fighting groups, the most recent and highly publicized group is the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) led by renegade Joseph Kony, now believed to be hiding out in the Central African Republic.

 This protracted pogrom displaced millions of people in a land area bigger than Rwanda and Burundi combined.

 About five years ago, a project aimed at resettling and rehabilitating this area, code-named Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF1), went into action with differing successes. It had both failures and successes. Today another phase of NUSAF 2 is being launched by the president. NUSAF2 promises great things-- "If well executed". Most of the failures like corruption, mismanagement and accountability issues, according to the project script, have been addressed in NUSAF2.

The project is aimed at rebuilding and empowering communities, revitalizing incomes, building peace and reconciliation and consolidating leadership.

 
However, the most dynamic model and strategy is the Social Activity Fund where the poor people, with proper guidance, actively participate in development issues and own the process. The project essentially is a bottom-up approach where the communities determine what projects they need most and are facilitated to procure production materials needed for income generating projects. The component also addresses infrastructure, water, health, education ultimately, will boost family incomes

The communities will constitute themselves into Community Interest Groups and will access financial and technical help by engaging in production, skills development and education.

This time round, government will engage the department of the Ombudsman, the Inspector General of Government (IGG) who will be a key player in monitoring the use of funds and resources in order to check corruption which beleaguered the last NUSAF.

 
However, the icing is on investment by locals and the international community into this sprawling but very promising agriculturally rich area where dividends are a sure deal, should there be a worthwhile initiative.