The United States Agency for International Development has announced a five-year, $50 million grant to Plan International and its partners to improve health systems in northern Uganda.

The grant will be used to launch a community-led initiative to increase the availability of quality health services in fifteen Ugandan districts and strengthen systems for the effective and sustainable delivery of such services. Primary partners in the initiative include IntraHealth International, Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, the Communication for Development Foundation Uganda, the AIDS Support Organisation, the Uganda Health Marketing Group, and Harvard University's Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.

While the majority of Ugandans displaced by the two-decade-long uprising led by Joseph Kony's guerrilla group, the Lord's Resistance Army, have returned to their homes, many in the country's northern region remain without access to quality healthcare services. The new initiative is designed to create a community-owned system that responds to the unique needs of this population.

"The award reflects USAID's commitment to Uganda," said Plan International USA president and CEO Tessie San Martin, "and its trust in [our ability] to improve the quality of and access to health care for marginalized groups — such as women and girls, children, and people living with HIV and AIDS — in some of the most remote and hard-to-reach communities of northern Uganda."