Government has allocated 52.047 billion shillings to fund projects in the seven districts of the Acholi sub region under the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund phase 3 (NUSAF3).
Under the NUSAF, the two major components that will be funded are; Household Income Support Program and Labour- Intensive Public Works.
The fund is part of 510 billion loan government has secured from the World Bank to address the poverty gap in districts under the Peace, Recovery and Development Plan (PRDP).
According to the project document that was released by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) during a familiarization meeting held at Gulu District Council Hall in Gulu town on Tuesday, Gulu is set to receive the largest amount since it composed of the new Omoro District.
Gulu and Omoro districts with a population of 478, 749 are expected to share a total of 14.7 billion shillings under NUSAF3.
Agago comes second with 7.2 billion shillings.
Other districts are; Amuru (6.9 Billion), Pader (6 Billion), Kitgum (5.9 Billion) and Lamwo (5.8 Billion) in that order.
Among the districts in Acholi, Nwoya will receive the least amount of fund of 5.2 Billion shillings.
Alfred Odera, the Program Operation Specialist in-charge of NUSAF in the OPM says government on Friday last week started to release operation fund to the benefiting districts.
Odera explained that the money is to enable the respective districts to recruit community facilitators and conduct trainings among others.
He also noted that unlike in the two past phases of NUSAF, the government has adopted a new approach in the implementation of the new phase of the program.
Odera says under NUSAF3, government has adopted the ‘‘watershed approach’’ in a bid to ensure that the impact of the program is felt within the targeted communities.
He explained that under the watershed approach, projects will be concentrated in a particular area other than spreading it in a wide in order to create maximum impact.
The NUSAF official explained that the major objective of the project is to build the capacity of the poor households especially in northern Uganda so that they can overcome poverty and other related challenges.
The Agago LCV Chairperson, Leonard Opiyo Ojok cautioned that unless the fund is put into proper use, the problem being faced by the communities in Acholi sub region may be far from over.
The Uganda National Household Survey 2012/2013 statistics puts the poverty level in Acholi which is categorized as midnorth at 35.4 percent from 40.4 in 2009/2010.
With a population of 1.5 million, dozens of families still live in abject poverty despite the billions of shillings that were pumped into the sub region in development projects by government and development partners.
