UNCDF

Okubani Market is located in northern Uganda’s Yumbe District, within the Bidibidi refugee settlement which, during the South Sudan civil war, was the largest settlement of its kind in the world.

The market is a vital economic hub for refugees from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as the host community, which suffered years of insecurity at the hands of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Hundreds of millions of people do not have access to electricity, seriously hampering their ability to improve their development prospects.

In Arua, northern Uganda, where employment rates are low and poverty is high, the UN is supporting a company that is providing pay-as-you-go solar energy services, putting the benefits of electricity in reach of villagers who would otherwise never be able to afford it.

In Lumonga village, situated in a remote part of the West Nile region of northern Uganda, smallholder farmers have traditionally been cut off from the banking system, and been forced to rely on small savings and loans from their community to survive hard times.

Northern Uganda has higher poverty and less employment that the south of the country, which is why the UN is backing projects aimed at boosting the regional economy.

In “Developing northern Uganda”, a special four-part mini-series, we go to Yumbe and Arua districts, to see how the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is helping to create sustainable employment prospects for local people.