CO-Discretionary support to Uganda 2020/ Oxfam in Uganda has committed through its COP 2020-21 to work with partners on influencing on several key drivers of inequality. For this to be effective, the quality of the partnership ought to be of high value. Hence, for Oxfam in Uganda and its partners to promote and adopt a Transformative Partnership Approach, there will be need to engage more with  the private sector to improve the quality of existing partnerships. Hence, discretionary funds will be used to enhance capacities of partners and staff.Key areas of focuswill be program quality and learning, strengthening internal technical capacities and skills for effective communication and influencing, enhancing the quality of programming and data, and evidence-based reporting. Advancing writing skills to enable technical teams to effectively communicate programmatic outputs and outcomes, effective documentation and supporting staff, partners and identified community members to tell their own stories will be our critical areas of focus. The other area for capacity strengthening is in digital influencing. These skills will not only facilitate delivery of our COP but also meet the growing donor requirement of accountability by demonstrating  impact of funding through proper documentation, as well as delivery of campaigns. The  2020/2030 Oxfam Country strategy under development recognises women’s rights as a standalone theme, whilst maintaining the mainstreaming approach.  Oxfam aspires to promote a transformative programme, enhancing staff and partner capacity skills in gender justice programming  which discretionary funding will allow us to support.

The 2021 general elections in Uganda present a strategic opportunity for participation. This will be curtailed if the civic space and influence of CSOs continues to shrink, preventing participation and informed decision making. Discretionary funding will, therefore, be utilised for Oxfam to support CSOs and citizens to reframe their engagement in ways that are lower risk, and allow them to reach and be accepted by communities with their campaign messages. Oxfam in Uganda will contribute to strengthening the capacities of CSOs and citizens to participate in democratic processes, working closely with the Centre for Constitutional Governance (CCG) the current hosts of the Civic Space Monitoring Website.

We will utilise part of the discretionary funds through working with our partner International Foundation for Recovery and Development (IFRAD) to compliment the Youth Ignite project funded by Irish Aidthat is currently facing a funding gap and yet has demonstrated high impact on women’s/youth economic empowerment and gender transformation. We will leverage on this to achieve high influencing outcomes and for resource mobilization. IFRAD is a key player in the youth empowerment ecosystem given their strong strategic alignment with Oxfam’s country strategyaimed at reducing inequalities. IFRAD  compliments ongoing programs such as PGII, Youth Employment and Engagement (YEEP) (Oxfam’s signature youth programs in Uganda) They are scaling and deepening our programming for young women and youth in Northern Uganda, which is contextually a key investment segment. IFRADs empowerment programming involves skills training for youth, equipping of women/youth village savings groups (VSLA), private sector organizing and local government-based influencing. IFRAD is the pioneer of local government based private sector organizing and they are integrating Oxfam’s supported groups. By engaging with them, we are investingin short community based skills trainings to women and youth to become resilient, promoting innovative employment value chains that increase jobs and incomes, as well as reduced incidences of  economic gender based violence. IFRAD’s programing also directly contributes to the recently developed Oxfam Private Sector Strategy, given that they lead efforts in grassroots private sector organizing and strengthening. The funding will also strengthen their capacity to develop gender transformative policies as afoundation to effectively compliment Oxfam’s influencing activities.