ACDI/VOCA Wins Largest Project Ever

This recently awarded five-year $74,345,850 USAID P.L. 480 Title II Multi-Year Assistance program is ACDI/VOCA's largest award ever. It seeks to reduce food insecurity and increase nutrition status in vulnerable populations through a smallholder agriculture component and targeted food distributions. ACDI/VOCA’s implementation partners are Africare, the Lutheran World Federation, The Aids Support Organization and local NGO grantees. Farmers will be trained in improved nutrition and hygiene, farming methods, post-harvest handling, group savings mobilization and management, Farming as a Business and collective marketing. Farm-to-market constraints will be mitigated through the rehabilitation of feeder roads. Food rations will be provided to people affected by HIV/AIDS and a Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition (MCHN) component will promote improved child feeding and health care practices in internally displaced persons’ camps and recently resettled communities.

Since 1986 Uganda has worked to rebuild its economy and make the difficult transition from a country torn by civil war to one of democracy and free enterprise. ACDI/VOCA has been assisting with this transition by promoting a wide range of development activities. The new project is an outgrowth of efforts that began in 1989 when ACDI/VOCA began managing a USAID-funded P.L. 480 Title II program with the objective of transforming smallholder subsistence farmers into viable commercial producers through the introduction of modern farming techniques. Over the years ACDI/VOCA has implemented seven other projects in Uganda, winning the confidence of USAID and other donors and partners, as well as Ugandan stakeholders.