Uganda

September 2016: HRW (Bede) recommended Tony Lake (UNICEF) to prioritise Uganda for advocacy on SSD.

October 2017: HRW article about the Aboke girls.

February 2017: Meeting with Ambassador of the GVA mission. Very positive meeting. He instantly made the connection to the attacks on schools and recruitment from schools carried out by the LRA in Uganda, and said that with recent efforts to increase school enrolments, the issue of education was a priority for the government right now. Already knew about the conference, and already knew about the sponsorship program. So committed to ensure that someone from Uganda would be there.

March 2017: Bede sent a follow up meeting to ask about attendance but no reply. Bede also wrote to the ambassador in Paris.

February 2018: In advance of OPAC turns 18 event, GCPEA issued letter highlighting that Uganda has signed OPAC, Paris, and Vancouver, but not the Declaration,and calling for endorsement.

February 2018:In advance of the End Violence Solutions Summit in Stockholm on 14-15 February, GCPEA issued letter to Uganda, highlighting the Declaration and calling for endorsement.

September 2018: Gisela met with Ambassador Onyanga Aparr and Second Secretary on humanitarian affairs in Geneva . She followed up by email sharing links to relevant GCPEA publications and examples of implementation. He expressed scepticism about the need for value of declarations such as the Safe Schools Declaration. In his view, soldiers would only ever use schools if it was absolutely the last resort so it is impossible to reduce the level of use. We discussed how military use can become protracted and how it has been brought to an end in some instances, and I shared examples of implementation in CAR, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, etc. which seemed to interest him. I highlighted the level of endorsement in the AU, the AU PSC’s call for endorsement, and referred to Uganda’s signing of OPAC, Paris, and Vancouver, and that they are a pathfinding country with the Global Campaign to End Violence Against Children. informed GCPEA that the Ugandan Ambassador in Washington , H.E Katende, who left Addis few months ago was very cooperative. He agreed in principle that endorsement and implementation of the Guidelines is the right thing to do in protecting the future of children in Africa. He committed on a number of occasions to encourage his Capital to consider endorsing the SSD but did not happen until his departure early this year.Diya is seeking a meeting with Ambassador Katende in Washington D.C. Minister Janet Musaveni, Uganda’s Minister for Education, has joined the Political Champions of Education in Conflict, and will attend a working lunch hosted by the Malala Fund in New York on 26 September. Gisela reached out to Alun, Head of Advocacy and Communications for Save the Children in Uganda if he could seek a meeting with Minister Musaveni following the lunch to bring the Declaration to her attention. Save the Children Uganda responded that the First Lady/Minister is unlikely to go to UNGA but the Prime Minister instead. Not sure if the Prime Minister was attending the Malala lunch.

January 2019: SafetoLearn campaign on ending violence in schools was launched. The Call to Action includes a call to national governments to endorse and implement the Safe Schools Declaration and the Guidelines. Uganda signed the Call to Action.

February 2019: Save the Children Geneva met with the Ambassador. Having expressed scepticism in a previous meeting, this time he indicated that Uganda would be in a position to endorse. He promised to send a strong recommendation to Kampala with a call for endorsement. Save the Children highlighted that Uganda was among the eight countries that had endorsed the World Education Forum Call to Action, which includes a specific call to governments to endorse and implement the Safe Schools Declaration and use the Guidelines.Save the Children briefed colleagues from Save the Children Kampala office and encouraged follow up with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They responded that there seems to be a genuine interest in signing the Declaration. The Save the Children Pan-African and AU Liaison Office advised that, during a recent eventon refugee education at which the Declaration was discussed, a representative of the Ugandan embassy to the AU approached them and inquired about the endorsement process. They agreed to meet with the Ambassador to brief them. Follow-up: Save the Children followed up in writing, sharing a letter for the Foreign Minister and the endorsement template letter.

April 2019: GCPEA and Human Rights Watch met with the Ambassador. Human Rights Watch provided overview of the Safe Schools Declaration and encouraged their attendance at the Spain conference. The Ambassador showed interest in the Spain conference and responded favourably to GCPEA’s suggestion that Uganda’s endorsement would be particularly significant due to their key role as a troop-contributing country to UN peacekeeping operations. GCPEA also highlighted that Ugandan peacekeepers have been deployed in countries that have already endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, such as Somalia. The Ambassador was curious whether we had conducted trainings for African Union peacekeepers. GCPEA also shared the findings from the Nigeria report and highlighted that girls and women are differently impacted by attacks on education and military use of schools, including the risk of sexual violence.

May 2019: Participated in the Third International Conference in Palma.

September 2022: Endorsed the Call to Action on Education in crisis situations (refers to EuA22 data) at the Transforming Education Summit