The First Lady and Minister for Karamoja affairs, Mrs. Janet Museveni, has thanked the George W. Bush Institute for their commitment to supporting initiatives of African First Ladies in their respective countries and for facilitating the building of networks and private-public partnerships to advance their work.
The First Lady was meeting with a team from the George W. Bush Institute of dialogue on fostering public-private partnerships in order to achieve the First Lady's goal of ensuring a comprehensive economic strategy, focusing on agricultural initiatives in Karamoja.
At the meeting held at State House Nakasero on Wednesday, the First Lady thanked the Bush Institute for the initiative, saying her office welcomes partnerships in their efforts to ensure that rural women farmers are skilled with modern agricultural methods, can access better seeds and animal breeds, in addition to small loans so that they can be able to produce food both for feeding their families and for income generation.
This, she said, would help families to become food secure throughout the year.
She said promotion of public-private partnerships and networks would help augment Government efforts and bridge the gap in service delivery.
She also advocated for technology that is user-friendly, saying rural families mainly rely on the women for man power.
The American team, led by the director of women initiatives and senior advisor to Mrs. Laura Bush, Charity Wallace, is in Uganda for a three-day visit to kickstart the support for their Institute's First Ladies Initiative to the Economic Opportunity Proposal for Uganda.
The visit is a follow-up on the George W. Bush Institute's African First Ladies Summit, attended by Mrs. Museveni in Dar-es-salaam in July 2013, during which the First Ladies Initiative was launched.
The initiative engages and supports First Ladies from around the world to effectively use their unique platforms to address pressing issues in their countries.
The team will also visit some of the organisations founded by Mrs. Museveni to acquaint themselves more with the First Lady's initiatives and carry out a needs assessment on possible areas of support.
These include the Uganda Women's Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO), the National Strategy for the Advancement of Rural Women in Uganda (NSARWU) and the Uganda Youth Forum (UYF).
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