The Kingdom of Buganda through the Buganda Investment and Commercial Undertaking Ltd (BICUL) and the United Nations Childrenโs Fund (UNICEF) today signed, at the Buganda Parliament, a pivotal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to launch a comprehensive partnership dedicated to improving the well-being and fulfilment of rights of the 4.2 million children in the Buganda region.
This collaboration is founded on the conviction that every child deserves to survive, to thrive, and to fulfil their potential. By blending resources with the Kingdom’s deep community roots and cultural authority and UNICEF’s authoritative global technical expertise the partnership is designed to generate sustainable, forward-looking positive change for children.
The spirit of the partnership is intrinsically linked to the traditional Buganda concept of Bulungi Bwansiโ working for the common goodโreflecting the core principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
At todayโs signing event, the Katikkiro of Buganda, Owek. Charles Mayiga highlighted the impact of the collaboration: “The way a community takes care of its children is how its future can be determined. A child is the foundation of adulthood, and we see our responsibility as absolute. We value this collaboration with UNICEF immensely because it enables us to comprehensively ensure childโs health and nutrition, keep children in school and protect them from violence. Working together allows us to immediately extend our efforts across education, immunization, nutrition, and health, securing the wellbeing of the next generation of Buganda.”
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) establishes four interconnected commitments where joint efforts will focus on issues impacting on children and their rights, including on:
- Child survival: Scale up immunisation and use Kingdom media to share life-saving information to reduce preventable mortality and malnutrition.
- Quality education: Eliminate barriers for vulnerable children. Focus on Early Childhood Development, launch re-enrolment campaigns, and empower Kabaka Youth Councils.
- Child protection: End abuse, violence, child marriage and adolescent pregnancies. Strengthen birth registration systems and collaborate with traditional leaders.
- Behaviour change and uplifting childrenโs voices: Shift attitudes by providing platforms for children to advocate for their own rights, recognizing them as agents of change; and fighting harmful social practisesย
The UNICEF representative, Dr Robin Nandy, noted the urgency and vision of the agreement: โThis Memorandum of Understanding is a promise to the children of the Buganda Kingdom and Uganda. We will be a reliable, transparent, and respectful partner, ensuring every resource invested translates into tangible improvements. Together in making a difference for the children, we are greater than the sum of our parts.“
A Joint Steering Committee will be established to define an action plan to implement the commitments taken through the Memorandum of Understanding, monitor progress of activities run and document successful models that can be further scaled up and shared.
