This week, the Embassy joined our partners World Food Program and UNICEF on a field visit to monitor the payment of emergency cash transfers to pregnant and lactating women from both refugee and host communities in West Nile. The distribution took place in Rhino Camp refugee settlement, Ocea Zone, Madi Okollo district and each woman received a payment of UGX 96,000. The money is intended to stabilise women’s and children’s feeding following disruptions in their access to nutritious food during the COVID-19 lockdown, further exacerbated by cuts in WFP food rations to all refugees living in 13 settlements in Uganda.
The support to a total of 61,000 women and children is made possible through our support to a social protection and health systems strengthening programme implemented jointly by WFP and UNICEF. Women in Adjumani, Arua, Madi Okollo, Koboko, Moyo, Obongi, Terego and Yumbe districts are also reached by the distribution.
Surrounded by happy mothers who have been struggling to make ends meet, we witnessed the recipients being trained on how to ensure they have good nutrition and how they can spend their money to ensure that the impact is felt by their families. Many recipients had to travel between 5km and 10km to receive their cash, but most were grateful for the assistance.
"I will buy a goat that we can look after, and I will also buy seeds that I will plant in my garden so that we can eat well", said Rose Ayo, a refugee from Yei in South Sudan (pictured below). Another refugee, Ms Jennifer Ayeku said, "I will not share my money with my husband. Not a single penny!"
The team also visited the Ocea Health Centre II, located in the centre of the settlement which received support through UNICEF, WFP and other partners to strengthen maternal and child health as well as nutrition services, supported by Sweden. The facility is treating patients from 4 sub-counties seeing up to 6000 outpatients per month.
We visited the maternity ward at Arua Regional Referral Hospital that was renovated by UNICEF with support from Sweden. The unit was provided with 5 incubators and a room has now been made available for kangaroo mother care for children born weighing less than 2.5kg. Our support has enabled the unit to train smaller health centres in the region to deal with less complicated challenges around childbirth, which has lessened the reliance on the Arua maternity ward by mothers in the West Nile sub-region.
Sweden is proud to support the World Food Program and UNICEF in their joint efforts to build resilience for both refugee and host communities in West Nile. We shall continue to work together with our partners in the areas of social protection and maternal and child health in order to help the most vulnerable communities in Uganda to lead productive lives.
