GiveDirectly has received President Yoweri Museveni’s permission to resume its cash-based intervention in Uganda.
Development Diaries understands that the nonprofit’s distribution of the money must however be aligned with government’s priorities, according to a government statement.
The U.S.-based nonprofit, which has been operating in Uganda since 2013, identifies and sends cash directly to people living in extreme poverty.
GiveDirectly’s operations were suspended in September 2020 after government blocked its U.S.$15million Covid-19 cash-relief distribution to vulnerable Ugandans whose earnings had been affected by the first Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020.
It is understood that the organisation had planned to distribute Shs 100,000 monthly cash to about 190,000 vulnerable Ugandans to cover both food and other essential non-food items.
About 23 percent of the urban poor in Uganda lost their daily income during and after the Covid-19-induced lockdown, according to a Development Initiative report.
However, Uganda’s National Bureau for NGOs suspended the cash distribution, claiming that an investigation had found that GiveDirectly’s cash handouts were likely to make Ugandans lazy, promote idleness, domestic violence, dependency syndrome and tension within neighbouring villages.
Records show that the East African country, in 2020, suspended the operations of 208 humanitarian agencies over violations of rules governing refugees in the country, according to a Xinhua report.
In the first week of June 2021, authorities in Uganda suspended the operations of six NGOs over alleged fraud.
Executive Director of National Bureau for NGOs, Stephen Okello, alleged that some of the organisations were involved in the forgery of documents authorising them to operate, defrauded their funders and individuals engaged in electronic fraud.
At a meeting with GiveDirectly’s Managing Director, Joe Huston, Museveni urged the nonprofit to ensure the government is aware of its activities and operate according to appropriate governance frameworks that enable government oversight.
‘We are grateful to be granted a second audience with your excellency and are thrilled to deepen our collaboration to support the government of Uganda in assisting Ugandans’ journeys out of poverty’, said Houston.
Source: The Observer Development Initiative
Photo source: GiveDirectly
