The Support to Skilling Uganda Intervention (SSU) in the Karamoja Region

Support to Skilling Uganda in Karamoja region is funded by the Government of Ireland, supporting relevant skills development for Karamojong youth, women and girls. It was concieved as a geographical extension of the Belgian-funded Support to Skilling Uganda intervention. Both interventions follow the same strategic approach and are contributing to the implementation of the Skilling Uganda Strategy. They will be implemented by the Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES) together with the Belgian Development Agency (BTC). The intervention is focusing on supporting the BTVET reform agenda, strengthening the national, regional and local skills development stakeholders, and piloting new competitive and demand-driven Skills Development Fund (SDF) mechanisms. As the Karamoja region has specific features (high poverty, low economic development, low literacy levels, few training providers and below average of quality training), the implementation of Skilling Uganda requires a specific approach to ensure its relevance to the Karamoja context. Therefore, the intervention will be focusing more on complementarity of skills development with livelihood activities, short term vocational training, emerging markets and possible future economic developments. The SSU programme participated in the development of the Gender Action Plan (GAP) at country level in which new approaches for supporting gender as a cross-cutting theme were developed. In Karamoja and Rwenzori-Albertine regions, the SSU programme in partnership with the seven VTIs participated in the ‘16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence’. The SSU programme staff in Northern Uganda participated through raising awareness on girl child rights.