Japanese government announces 3.6m USD support to women refugees

By Derrick Senyonga

KAMPALA

The Government of Japan and UN Women yesterday announced the launch of a two-and-a-half-year project that aims to strengthen Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) in refugee settlements and host communities. The approximately 3.6m USD project will be implemented by UN Women through humanitarian responses.

Hon. Lillian Aber presiding over the meeting with the Japanese Ambassador at the OPM Offices, Kampala

The announcement was made during a signing ceremony between the Japanese government and UN Women held at the Office of the Prime Minister and witnessed by the State Minister of Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees Hon. Dr. Lillian Aber.

“We hope that this project will encourage gender equality and women’s empowerment in both refugee settlements and host communities,” said H.E. Mr. Takuya Sasayama, the Ambassador of Japan to Uganda. He also mentioned that women can participate in peace processes with their leadership, which leads to sustainable peace societies.

“Women are increasingly at risk in conflict and underrepresented in peace processes. These negative trends are setting back both gender equality and global peace,” said Dr. Paulina Chiwangu, UN Uganda Country Representative. She also added that the positive impact can be achieved by strengthening the capacity and leadership of women and girl refugees to participate in mediation and peace processes, increasing the learning and economic opportunities and supporting women’s and girls’ resilience in vulnerable settings.

L – R UN Women Uganda Country Representative, Dr. Paulina Chiwangu, Hon. Dr. Lillian Aber and H.E. Takuya Sasayama

The Minister Hon. Lillian Aber applauded the government of Japan for being Uganda’s strong ally noting that Japan has contributed over 22m USD through UN agencies to humanitarian support and refugee response in the country.

“We believe this money will enable UN women to support 11,000 women, girls, boys, and men in Adjumani, Yumbe, Madi Okollo, Isingiro and Kwegegwa Districts. These are frontline districts which are currently receiving a large influx of refugees from DRC, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and South Sudan,” she said.

Aber also revealed that the government is in the process of streamlining its partnerships with all actors in the humanitarian responses so that it could quantify the contributions of each actor to establish whether such refugee response is in line with Uganda’s humanitarian and development priorities urging all actors: namely the UN agencies, International and local NGOs; Civil Society actors and faith-based organizations to visit the Department of Refugees at OPM and get acquainted with the process for better service delivery.

Hon. Dr. Lillian Aber, (4th left) State Minister for Relief Disaster Preparedness and Refugees and H.E. Takuya Sasayama (4th right), the Ambassador of Japan to Uganda in a group photo

The WPS project enhances support to women peacebuilders and women’s human rights defenders, integrating gender in risk reduction and humanitarian response, increasing the capacity of humanitarian actors on gender, and building women’s and girls’ resilience, including through economic empowerment and enhanced response to Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) stemming from insecurity in West Nile and Southwest regions.