

African Women Rising (AWR) was launched in 2006 to empower women displaced by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the 20-year war in northern Uganda. A pioneer of permagardens in northern Uganda, AWR received funding from Cooperazione e Sviluppo Onlus (CESVI) and Trócaire to assist 4,500 South Sudanese refugees develop permagardens on their plots. To assess the impact of this intervention, AWR commissioned a participatory impact assessment (PIA) that was carried out from 20th November – 4th December 2019, to address two key questions:
The assessment found that increased food availability was the primary benefit associated with permagarden ownership, followed by increased income through the sale of fresh vegetables. As a result of increased food availability, dependence on food aid was reduced and the refugees also reported improvements in household nutrition. Permagarden ownership also resulted in a 60 percent decrease in the number of households consuming only one meal a day and a 179 percent increase in the number of households eating three meals a day.