International Development Law Organization

Uganda

English

Uganda has made much progress in reducing poverty and promoting stability in past years, particularly through improvements on several justice-related indicators. Despite these gains, the justice sector still faces significant challenges relating to funding and capacity, public perceptions of pervasive corruption, inaccessibility of services for the poor sections of the population, low quality and sustainability of the legal aid and information services, costliness and slow speeds of dispute resolution, among others. These challenges have negatively affected citizens’ confidence in the formal system leading people to resort to other means to seek recourse and may also increase the likelihood of violence and further corruption. There is a therefore a need for effective interventions to enhance the reach, quality and sustainability of access to justice in Uganda.

UGANDA: Enhancing Access to Justice for the Marginalized and Vulnerable Communities in Uganda

This sub-project aims to enhance access to justice for marginalized and vulnerable communities of Kabale, Masindi, Kabarole, Gulu, Jinja, Kampala, in Uganda. The Uganda Law Society (ULS), through its legal aid clinics, is providing the indigent, vulnerable and marginalized communities with quality legal aid services, such as legal advice, counselling, alternative dispute resolution and court representation.

UGANDA: Enhancing Leadership, Influence and Movement Building for Improved Gender Justice

This sub-project aims to improve access to justice for poor, vulnerable and marginalized women in Uganda. The Uganda Women’s Network (UWONET) is enhancing the capacity of selected Parliamentary Committees on gender justice and gender-responsiveness, and reviewing gender-related Bills for compliance with women’s and human rights’ standards.

UGANDA: Supporting Legal Aid Service Providers (LASPs) to Enhance Access to Justice for the Poor, Vulnerable and Marginalized in Uganda

This sub-project aimed to enhance access to justice for poor, vulnerable and marginalized people in Uganda, by strengthening legal aid service delivery. In close cooperation with IDLO, the Legal Aid Service Providers Network (LASPNET) strengthened the capacity of Legal Aid Service Providers (LASPs) to deliver quality services by equipping them with standardized legal aid resource materials and knowledge on project management.

UGANDA: Promote Healthy Diets through Legal Empowerment and Social Accountability Mechanisms, Using a Human Rights-Based, Participatory, Multi-Sectoral Approach

The sub-project aimed to strengthen human rights-based advocacy initiatives to support regulatory and fiscal measures that promote healthy diets by adopting a two-pronged approach based on: i) multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder advocacy platforms; and ii) legal empowerment through awareness-raising and capacity development. In this framework, CEFROHT contributed to healthy diet reforms through the establishment of an Advocacy Working Group (AWG) composed of representatives from Government, civil society organizations (CSOs), academia and the media.

UGANDA: Strengthening Gender Responsive Treatment of Women in Conflict with the Law in Western Uganda

This sub-project aims to scale up a new model of gender-sensitive sentencing and effective delivery of gender-sensitive community service orders in Western Uganda. Working closely with the Judiciary and the Uganda Prisons Service, Penal Reform International (PRI) is strengthening the capacity of criminal justice actors on the management of women offenders and improving representation and support for women offenders in Uganda.

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Key Initiatives

  • Like other countries on the African continent, the Ugandan justice sector faces many challenges. Citizens demonstrate a widespread distrust towards formal justice institutions, which are perceived as corrupt, removed from the communities, expensive and slow to resolve disputes. This lack of confidence in the formal system leads people to resort to other means to seek recourse, and may also increase the likelihood of violence and further corruption.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic poses a significant threat to the right to food for populations, and especially for marginalized groups. In many countries, COVID-19 is intertwining with pre-existing factors affecting food security and nutrition, by limiting the access to affordable and nutritious food, including lack of economic opportunities, extreme weather conditions, ongoing conflicts and more.
  • IDLO is rolling out a program that aims to secure accessible, quality and sustainable justice services for citizens - particularly those living in rural, poor and other disadvantaged communities. The Community Justice Programme (CJP) supports both state and non-state legal aid, legal empowerment and other justice delivery interventions.
  • As part of IDLO’s continuous commitment to accountability and results-based management, IDLO is pleased to share this Evaluation Brief for the project, "Integrating Legal Empowerment and Social Accountability for Quality HIV Health Services for Adolescent Girls and Young Women". The evaluation has been conducted by independent evaluation experts, supervised by IDLO’s Evaluation Unit. This exercise utilized a theory-driven, mixed-method approach, in line with the IDLO Evaluation Guidelines and OECD DAC standards.
  • As part of IDLO’s continuous commitment to accountability and results-based management, IDLO is pleased to share this Evaluati
  • Promoting Healthy Diets and Physical Activity in Uganda
  • Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) kill 15 million people between the ages of 30 and 69, and over 86 per cent of these "premature" deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.The economic impact, including loss of income by people harmed by NCDs, the costs of treatment, and the impacts on families threaten international development. Through regulation and fiscal reforms, countries can promote healthy diets, physical activity, and other initiatives reducing the prevalence and harms of NCDs. 
  • One of the challenges in scaling up HIV-related legal services is the limited number of knowledgeable, skilled and committed lawyers to provide such services. Part of the solution therefore lies in building the capacity of law schools to ensure law graduates are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to support human rights-based approaches to HIV. Many universities, including in East Africa, offer clinical legal education programs to give students direct experience of providing legal information to clients.
  • Adolescent girls and young women account for 71 percent of new HIV infections among young people in sub-Saharan Africa. They are more vulnerable to HIV because they are often subjected to a range of gender and age based biases, discrimination and violence, including sexual assault, forced marriage and trafficking. Despite growing HIV-related responses, they and their communities most often do not have the capacity, voice and power to hold these service providers accountable for improved delivery of quality HIV-related services.
  • The full report on “Strengthening the Legal Environment for the Elimination of Falsified and Substandard Medicines” is now available. The report is the third product of the pilot and preliminary phase of a larger initiative to build a knowledge base and collection of tools to support a whole-of-government approach to manage the public health problem of falsified and substandard (FS) medicines in any country.  See also the executive summary from the beginning stages
  • Rates of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) remain high in Uganda due to cultural practices, continued internal displacement, and low capacity of the justice system. IDLO is working to advance accountability for SGBV crimes committed in times of or after armed conflict in Uganda. 
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