With a budget of around € 26 million, this flagship programme is designed to consolidate stability in Northern Uganda, eradicate poverty and under-nutrition and strengthen the foundations for sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development. The programme will benefit 33 districts with a total population of over 7 million people. The objective of the programme is to reduce the development gap between Northern Uganda and the rest of the country by focusing on three areas: Nutrition and Food Security, Road Infrastructure, and Good Governance.

This innovative programme offers a unique combination of technical assistance and finance to key stakeholders in these three areas:

1. A dedicated blended finance facility (Support to Agricultural Revitalization and Transformation, START) to provide affordable finance (grants, loans and guarantees) and Business Development Services (BDS) to finance Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) value adding projects in agriculture. The initial capitalization is € 4 million with an expected leverage of € 8 million through private sector financing and financial support from development partners.
2. A District Road Rehabilitation Facility offering conditional grants for rehabilitation of district and community access roads in target districts managed by respective district governments to connect local and regional markets and improve the access of local communities to jobs and social services. The initial capitalization is € 7.2 million with an expected leverage of € 1.4 million from public and private funds.
3. Support to national Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms aimed at improved efficiency in allocation, use and availability of public resources, elimination of corruption, better accountability and strengthened PFM systems, localization and tracking of the SDGs as well as promotion of customary land tenure systems. This support includes design and piloting of mobile money platforms for digitization of local revenue collection. There are two dedicated funding facilities:

• Performance-based discretionary grant facility for target local governments (Local Government Excellence Fund, LGEF) to help them invest in catalytic economic projects, local infrastructure for climate change adaptation and economic empowerment of women and young people and addressing the refugee challenge. The initial capitalization is € 2 million, and the facility is expected to mobilize another € 0.4 million in public investments.
• Conditional matching grants and technical assistance for local governments to mobilize local resources for improved service delivery through improved revenue administration, asset management and revenue enhancement initiatives. The initial capitalization is € 1.3 million with an expected leverage of € 2.6 million.