The Hunger Project Uganda may expand to eastern Uganda or to the Kabale-Kisoro region. Its activities are currently centered in Mpigi and Wakiso districts. Jeanne Uwineza Gasasira, The Hunger Project (THP) country director for Uganda, told this to The Monitor in an interview in New York. "We have been in this place for over two years now, and we need to expand," Gasasira said. Possible expansion will be discussed next month at THP’s national advisory council meeting.

She added that there are currently no plans to expand the program to the impoverished and war-torn districts of northern Uganda, because of insufficient funds.

Doris Kiconco, the national coordinator for THP’s African Woman Food Farmer Initiative (AWFFI), which started in April, said the initiative has trained 387 women in Mpigi and Wakiso districts, and given loans to 247 women. In addition, the group has made loans to a few men who have "accepted to be in women’s groups," Kiconco said. "We gave these men the loans to maintain cohesiveness in the village or community."

But Kiconco and Jeanne Uwineza Gasasira, The Hunger Project (THP) country director for Uganda, emphasized that it is the women farmers in Uganda who are most in need of support, because the government has largely neglected them. Only seven percent of extension services for farmers go to women, and only one percent of the credit given to small-scale farmers is given to women, according to Gasasira. In addition, she said that women farmers in families are without capital, are responsible for feeding the children, and are likely to be given the least fertile piece of land to farm.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries has addressed the gender gap in farm aid in its plan to modernize agriculture. "The general direction is to support women farmers," Gasasira said, "but we have to put it into practice."

Until then, THP and other NGOs fill the void. Gasasira said that THP’s activities in Uganda besides the AWFFI also prioritize helping women. THP Uganda works directly in 71 villages with 30,000 farmers, and indirectly impacts 100,000 people, on an annual budget of US$200,000. She noted that among loan recipients, "The women pay back, while the men don’t. The men are not scared of going to prison for defaulting."

The work focuses on "epicenters," hot spots for people to come for small loans, food-production education, and health education. "All this is focused on looking at hunger in all its manifestations," Gasasira said.

"Hunger is a lack of food, but also a lack of knowledge, lack of skills, lack of credit."

Kiconco’s initiative provides similar services specifically targeted for women. A startup budget of US$200,000 -- supplemented by a discretionary investment of US$100,000 by President Yoweri Museveni, pledged in February and donated in August -- has provided for loans of up to Shs 200,000, at an annual interest rate of 10 percent.

In addition to providing loans, the initiative teaches recipients bookkeeping, trains them in project identification, planning, and management, and teaches technical skills. Loans can provide for farming cassava, maize, beans, peppers, or tomatoes, or raising poultry or pigs. Some women begin brickmaking businesses, which can be quite profitable. A woman can produce 10,000 bricks in a year. Each brick costs Shs 10 to produce and can be sold for Shs 35.

Museveni’s investment in THP reflects the NGO’s good relationship with the Ugandan government. This is fostered by Kiconco, who, when she is not working on AWFFI projects, is the NGO desk officer at the Ministry of Agriculture.

Neither Gisasara nor Kiconco oppose the proposed NGO Amendment Bill now before Parliament. "There are too many briefcase NGOs," said Gisasara. "They are spoiling the name of the NGOs who do a good job." Kiconco added that many of these "briefcase NGOs" took advantage of the government’s policy to not assess taxes on NGOs.

Kiconco and Gasasira were in New York for meetings at The Hunger Project’s Manhattan headquarters, where they compared notes with THP project coordinators from the eight other African nations where THP is active about the situation for women farmers in their countries. "Uganda is well ahead," Gasasira said, "but we have far to go."