BY: ISAIAH KITIMBO
WAKISO The Commissioner Monitoring and Evaluation – Local Governments at Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), Mr. Gonzaga Mayanja, has urged implementing partners of the Development Initiative for Northern Uganda (DINU) programme to work closely with the local governments for sustainability of investments made.
He said the DINU projects should be tailored to improve the lives of the beneficiaries in Northern Uganda, adding: “The critical issue, which we want the partners to note is sustainability of the investments undertaken in their various areas of operation.”
Mr. Gonzaga Mayanja, the Commissioner Monitoring and Evaluation – Local Governments at Office of the Prime Minister, addresses DINU technical working group members and implementing partners in Entebbe
Mr. Mayanja, who represented the OPM Permanent Secretary, Mr. Keith Muhakanizi, was speaking on May 18 at the DINU partners’ national coordination meeting in Entebbe, Wakiso District. The partners also interacted with the programme technical working group (TWG) members, who were reviewing their annual reports and work plans.
“The purpose of this meeting was to assess the implementation progress of the programme by the partners. We wanted to take stock of what has been done by the partners given that the programme is coming to an end,” he said.
“We also want ownership. We want to make sure that the programmes and the projects are integrated in the District Development Plans such that at the end of the programme [implementation period] the local governments where the partners have been working can sustainably maintain the interventions that have been put across. Once that is done, we (OPM) will be in position to see some outcomes of the DINU programme by the various actors after a given period of time,” he explained.
According to Mr. Mayanja, staff from the M&E directorate of OPM have been selected to join the DINU TWG to make sure, “we study the programme such that we can do an evaluation at outcome level and also get lessons for future programmes.”
Ms Annette Were Munabi from the EU Delegation in Uganda, advised implementing partners to consolidate achievements and increasingly align project results indicators to the DINU results framework.
“As we draw closer to the end lines of activities (2023 – final year for all components), there is need to fast-track implementation rate, to allow the OPM to consolidate benefits of the programme to the people of NU. We are past mid-term for all projects/grants & Delegation Agreements, and hence reporting should have some concrete results by now,” she said.
She hailed OPM-Programme Management Unit for supporting the implementation, coordination, supervision, monitoring and evaluation of the DINU programme despite challenges occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic.
She observed that implementing partners have made tremendous progress with implementation of the various DINU components.
The DINU National Programme Coordinator, Mr Pius Ongom Okello, thanked the TWG members for consistently giving tangible and timely feedback to implementing partners’ annual reports and work plans.
“In terms of the recommendations that have been made here, as the secretariat, we are going to sit down and package this information around issues of implementation, sustainability and closure of the programme. We think that the next TWG meeting will be for either monitoring of the different actions or looking at the final reports of the partners,” he said.
Ms. Annette Were Munabi from the EU Delegation in Uganda, addresses participants at the meeting
Mr. Pius Ongom Okello, the DINU National Programme Coordinator and chairperson of the technical working group, guides the meeting in Entebbe
DINU background
The Development Initiative for Northern Uganda (DINU) programme was initiated in 2017. The 150.6 million Euros affirmative action programme of the Government of Uganda and supported by the European Union and supervised by OPM with Ministry of MoFPED as the Contracting Authority of the Financing Agreement between the EU and GoU signed on January13, 2017.
The programme is designed to consolidate stability in Northern Uganda, eradicate poverty and under-nutrition and strengthen the foundations for sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development.
DINU is a multi-sectoral integrated programme supporting interventions in three specific interlinked sectors: (1) Food Security, Nutrition and Livelihoods (2) Infrastructures (transport, logistics, water, energy) and (3) Good Governance. The programme is implemented in Acholi, Karamoja, Lango, Teso and West Nile sub-regions covering 41 districts with different levels of interventions.
The implementing partners include Department for International Development (DFID)/Trademark East Africa, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA). Other are CARITAS Switzerland, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (ITTA), National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), Lutheran World Federation (LWF), CARE-Denmark, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), ADOL Health Care Initiative and DIAKONIA-Sweden.
Further details on the DINU programme can be found at Twitter: @OPMDINU1 and OPM website: www.opm.go.ug
