Moyo District – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reaffirms its commitment to supporting refugees and host communities in Uganda to be resilient and food and nutrition secure, as part of its contribution to Uganda’s refugee response, and in recognition of the potential of refugees to have positive impacts in their host communities.

This commitment was made by FAO Uganda Country Representative, Antonio Querido while commissioning a multi-purpose solar-powered irrigation system in Palorinya East Village, Itula Sub-county, in Moyo District. The introduction of the irrigation system is one of several interventions by FAO to empower refugees through the “Strengthening the resilience of livelihood systems of refugees and host communities” Project, funded by the Government of Japan. The project, implemented in close collaboration with the Office of the Prime Minister’s Department of Refugees, the District Local Governments of Moyo and Yumbe and local implementing partner- Community Empowerment for Rural Development (CEFORD), seeks to help refugees and host communities to absorb, recover from and adapt to shocks to their livelihoods by empowering households to anticipate and mitigate future shocks to food and nutrition security.

The newly commissioned multi-purpose solar-powered irrigation scheme will increase access to water for production for more than 50 households and enable year-round cultivation of high-value crops to meet market demands within the refugee and host community markets for access to nutrient-rich foods.

Speaking at the commissioning event in Moyo District, FAO Representative in Uganda, Antonio Querido called for concerted efforts of humanitarian and development actors to support refugee empowerment and self-reliance. Uganda currently hosts more than 1.2 million refugees, mainly from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“The integration of refugees into local economies is a long-term process that we can support by working together to achieve a common vision of peaceful co-existence, free of hunger and poverty,” he said. “We need to work with government and development partners toward building the capacity of agribusinesses through the development of business skills and strategies with a special focus on youth and other extremely vulnerable populations,” he added.

Querido thanked the Government of Japan for demonstrating its commitment to providing this urgent assistance to refugees to transition from reliance on humanitarian aid to medium and long-term support to build sustainable livelihoods.

The Ambassador of Japan to Uganda, H.E. Kazuaki Kameda expressed his pleasure with the members of the refugee-hosting communities in Moyo district who have offered their land but also accepted to work together with refugees to better their livelihoods through agriculture. He urged members of Rubijame Farmers Group, in Itula Sub-county, a group that has benefited from a small scale, solar-powered micro irrigation system, to use the facility to disseminate the good practices learned to other communities around them.

“I am honestly impressed to witness remarkable achievements with the extensive vegetable field in this arid area”, he said. “I believe that these achievements could be attributable to both the diligent work by FAO and the self-help effort by refugees and host communities, as we have witnessed,” the Ambassador added.

He further stressed the need for increased funding for livelihood options for refugees saying that, “since the refugee influx still continues and the length of their stay becomes prolonged, livelihood support becomes much more crucial in order to establish self-reliance and reduce reliance on food aid.”

It is estimated that in 2018, only 11% of the total budget for refugee response in Uganda was allocated to livelihood support. However, a lot more is required to address key livelihood challenges for both the refugees and the communities hosting them.

John Paul Magezi, the Protection Officer in the Office of Prime Minister’s Department for Refugees, who also represented the Commissioner for Refugees, commended FAO for a job well executed. He called upon FAO and other development partners to support the Government of Uganda and refugees to transition from emergency to recovery, with initiatives aimed at improving livelihoods of refugees living in Uganda and those of communities hosting refugees.

Through this one year project, FAO and the Government of Japan have supported more than 900 refugees and host community households in Moyo and Yumbe districts to strengthen the resilience of their livelihoods. The project also made it possible for 850 refugee households and 450 households of extremely vulnerable individuals in host communities to access animal-sourced protein; a critical intervention towards achieving the sustainable development goal of Zero Hunger.

Since 2015, FAO’s support to refugees and host communities has reached more than 360 000 beneficiary households.

Micro irrigations systems are part of FAO’s refugee and host community response that aims to provide sustainable solutions to enable refugees and host communities by providing reliable access to water for production.