The Office of the President through the Manifesto Implementation Unit (MIU) will hold a validation and monitoring exercise to track the progress of government commitments in the NRM Manifesto 2021-26 for Greater Northern Uganda.
The exercise which targets the three sub-regions of Acholi, Lango and Teso will be opened by the Minister for Presidency Milly Babirye Bablanda and the Permanent Secretary Hajji Yunus Kakande, will take place from March 22nd to 24th, 2023 at the National Leadership Institute in Kyankwanzi, according to the chief convener and Director MIU, Mr. Willis Bashaasha.
Bashaasha revealed that the 4-day retreat will be attended by technical and political local leaders from the greater northern Uganda. These will be joined by NRM party leaders from these regions, who are expected to report and inform the Presidency about the extent of implementation of programmes spelt out in the manifesto.
Bashaasha noted that the retreat is organized in line with the MIU’s mandate to track, report and publicize the performance, progress and challenges of implementation of the manifesto, which is the NRM government’s social contract with Ugandans.
“This government gained legitimacy through the will of Ugandans who trust it to deliver services to them to promote and enhance their socioeconomic wellbeing. This is why we need to take stock of these promises and assess the extent to which they have been fulfilled for the betterment of Ugandans. This therefore is the general spirit of this retreat,” Bashaasha said.
He added that the critical implementation of the current manifesto began this financial year (2022/23), given that 2021/22 was largely a planning year which was also greatly hampered by the aftershocks of the covid-19 pandemic.
“Therefore, this meeting will help us in the coordination, planning and reporting on the manifesto commitments for the greater north, with specific emphasis on assessing the alignment of the service delivery to the 23 strategic guidelines and directives issued by the president,” he said.
Bashaasha noted that because manifesto implementation is a multi-sectoral process which also requires transparency, the Kyankwanzi retreat will be attended by a host of manifesto stakeholders from key government service delivery ministries including Education, Health, Agriculture, Works & Transport, Water & Environment and Local Government; as well as officials from poverty-alleviation programmes including PDM, Emyooga among others. These technocrats will make presentations to manifesto supervision and monitoring agencies including the Presidency, State House, and Ministry of Finance as well as NRM party leaders and presidential advisors from the Greater North.
Officials from the PDM Secretariat will also present on the status of PDM, whose funds have been disbursed to centers from where beneficiaries can get them.
WHAT WILL BE ACHIEVED
Bashaasha explained that the main objective of the retreat is to take stock and account for the manifesto commitments and achievements to the Ugandans in the Greater North as well as explaining and sharing synergies required in the implementation of the manifesto commitments.
“We at the presidency and MIU in particular, are sure that once this is done, then we shall be able to validate the extent of implementation of the manifesto commitments so far and also track the extent to which the president’s 23 strategic guidelines have been followed. We shall then agree on areas of further sustained coordination in the planning, reporting and communication of these achievements — which is very critical because we are mindful of the harm in failing to publicize what the government has done,” Bashaasha added.
The Kyankwanzi retreat is part of the manifesto midterm review activities which precede the Manifesto Week (slated for May) at which all government MDAs will make full presentations of how far they have achieved the manifesto commitments tagged to their respective dockets.
