He is a Technical Consultant for University Governance and Management, Karamoja Peace And Technology University.

James has 20 years’ experience in implementing and managing mutli sectoral social development programmes. Most of this experience is at leadership level including development, management and coordination of public private Partnerships. Over the years, he has engaged in frontline development work and eventually graduated to technical advisory, grantee management, policy analysis/advocacy, Capacity building and general technical backstopping of social development programs in the East Africa Region.

James worked as Country Manager for Terre des Hommes, Netherlands in Uganda (with the bulk of their operations in Karamoja region) where he successfully managed to double the portfolio of the country program and improved the organisational visibility and influence on matters child and human rights. He doubled as an International Election Observer for the East African Community (EAC) and has recently observed elections in Kenya (2022), Ethiopia (2021) and Comoros (2018).This comes on the heels of his offering technical advisory to select Instititutions in East Africa including a part time lecturing role at the Nairobi based International Peace Support Trainin Center (IPSTC).

He has also been a Programming Technical Advisor for Impact and Innovations Development Center (IIDC) an organisation offering technical advisory to select Civil Society Organisations in East Africa. His technical advisory included quality assurance, supporting policy advocacy efforts, strategic linkages with Governments and other relevant agencies and ensuring that partners design and implement impactful programs that meet the communities’ felt needs and cause no harm.

James started out his career as a frontline counsellor and later gained immense experience in Psychosocial support while working for a street children rehabilitation and resettlement organisation. He grew through the ranks to lead Social work at the same organization and later moved to Baylor Collee of Medicine where he was supervising a team of professional Counsellors and Community outreach teams to offer psychosocial support and social protection to HIV Infected children and their families including health promotion at community level.

James has since worked with diverse organisations within the region and has got a good understanding of the evolving operational context for development work. He has worked with a broad range of Civil Society Organisations including Faith Based Organisations, network organisations as well as Public and Private Organisations which enable him to do strategic engagements easily within the East African Region generally and Uganda in particular. Specifically, six years at the Inter Religious Council of Uganda (IRCU) working with up to 101 multi faith-based organisations spread across the whole country and implementing various interventions give him an immense network to rely on for strategic engagements.

Over and above his very relevant Bachelor and Post graduate qualifications, James has deliberately undertaken specialised trainings which have increased his suitability for development work; these include Impact Evaluation Course from Sussex University, United Kingdom, Social Norms Social Change Course I&II from the University of Pennsylvania and UN/AU accredited courses at the International Peace Support Center, Nairobi, Kenya).

1. Social Norms Social Change I&II, University of Pennsylvania, USA 2018.
2. Designing Effective Ways to Evaluate Impact, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, UK 2017.
3. Master of Arts in Social Sector Planning, Makerere University, 2002-2007.
4. Bachelor of Adult and Community Education, Makerere University, 1998-2001.
5. Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education, St. Joseph’s Vocational School, Mbarara 1996-1998.
6. Uganda Certificate of Education, St. Joseph’s Vocational School Mbarara, 1992-1995.

• A presenter at the African CSO Forum and the Africa Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC), Maseru, Lesotho Nov 2022.
• Country Representative to the Global Strategy validation Meetings, Terre des Hommes Netherlands, September 2022, The Hague Netherlands.
• Country Representative to the Governance workshops, Terre des Hommes Netherlands, February 2022, The Hague, Netherlands.
• International Election Observer for the East African Community (EAC) in Ethiopia (2021) and Comoros (2018).
• A presenter at the African CSO Forum and the Africa Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC), Cairo Egypt Nov 2019.
• A Presenter at the Impact and Innovations Development Center Annual CSO Learning Convenings in Kampala (October 2016), Dar es Salaam (Oct 2017) and Kisumu (October 2018).
• A Participant at the Sexual Violence Research Instituted Forum September 2017 in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.
• A presenter at the 2nd Regional Psychosocial Forum; Nairobi Kenya October 2013.
• A Presenter at the 5th and 6th IAS Conferences on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention; Rome Italy, 2011 and Cape Town, South Africa, 2009.
• A participant at the Global Roundtable marking the tenth Anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development, August 2004, London United Kingdom.
• A member of the National steering committee of the UN Study on violence against children in Uganda.
• A participant at the Africa Regional meeting to mark the tenth Anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development, June 2004, Nairobi Kenya.
• A presenter at the First Congress on the Advancement of Sexual Health and Rights in Africa, February 2004, Johannesburg, South Africa.
• A participant at the Eighth International Conference on Women, July 2002, Kampala Uganda.

1. United Kingdom.
2. Egypt.
3. South Africa.
4. Brazil.
5. UAE.
6. Comoros Islands.
7. Lesotho.
8. Kenya.
9. Tanzania.

Country Manager, Uganda, July 2019 – Dec 2023, Terre des Hommes.

Major Roles:

The Country Manager is the Chief Executive of Terre des Hommes in Uganda. He has operational, programmatic and financial responsibility for the Country Program. He represents the organization in all the national and international level spaces, overseas grants to implementing partner NGOs and ensures the country portfolio continues to grow (fundraising and proposal development), reports to all stakeholders including donors and influences matters of child and human rights at different levels.

Relevant Achievements:

• Doubling of the Country Program: Working with the team, grew the annual budget of the country program from 1m euro in 2019 to 2m euro in 2022 and counting.
• Visibility and recognition of the organisation: During my tenure, Terre des Hommes, Netherlands grew from being a laid back donor, to being popularly known and visible; gaining recognition as a leading actor on child and human rights. The highlight of this was being chosen to present the Uganda CSO statement to the Government of Uganda and development partners on the International Day of the Girl Child 2021.
• Geographical footprint: while TdH had a presence in only 5 Ugandan districts at the begining of my tenure, we doubled this footprint in a period of 3 years.
• Partnership growth: Greater and sustainable impact can only be possible with strategic partnerships. From the Joining Forces Alliance 1 to leading the she leads program 2 across the country, the TdH portfolio expanded leading to creation of synergies and opportunities that never existed before.
• MoU with Government: For the first time since the existence of TdH in Uganda, the organisation has a formal 5 year MoU with the line ministry which has enabled greater collaboration and functionality at various levels.
• Efficiency and Effectiveness: Uganda Country office was one of the best managed entities within the region and the entire organisation. All audit reports and donor compliance requirements were clean and submitted in a timely manner.
• Human Resource Management: The Human resource in Uganda grew in size and in professional diversity with limited attrition rates.
• Opinion Leadership: Following a national dialogue organized and hosted by TdH a motion is now before the parliament of Uganda to address the Plight of street children in Uganda, another first in the history of the organisation in Uganda.

Technical Advisor, Programing, Oct 2017- June 2019, Impact and Innovations Development Center.

Major Roles:

He/she supports organizational teams in East Africa to plan for and execute robust Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) processes/frameworks that ensure delivery of quality projects/interventions and demonstration of results/impact to the intended beneficiaries.

The Technical Advisor-Programing is the principal point person for technical backstopping of projects in the East African Region that focus on realization and respect for human rights particularly those of children and their families.

He/she mentors and works with different project teams to ensure that projects are well conceived thus more impactful which calls for meticulous and robust project design that is premised on the Theory of Change thinking and takes into consideration community needs.

He/she also acts as a source of information for partners in the thematic area including supporting them to focus on learning from practice and beyond to ensure that the principle of do no harm is maintained.

He/she facilitates Organisations to undertake program self-audits and assessments to determine capacity needs and works with them to
innovatively meet them in a sustainable and systematic manner thorough tailor-made training, mentorship and targeted interventions.

He/she facilitates Organisations to better document their emerging and proven best practices and facilitates them to showcase them at national, regional and international level.

He/she also manages grants, links partners to strategic partners in Government and Civil society to influence discourse and policy as necessary.

Relevant Achievements:

• Implementing Impactful programs: been able to work with the 8 partner Organisations in each East African country to refine ongoing and new projects to increase their impact but most importantly the ability to measure both the outcomes and impact of the interventions.
• Better Documentation and Data Management: Learning cannot happen if data collection management and analysis are not going on. These are the basis for program documentation that facilitates learning. we have worked with partner Organisations to set up robust Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) frameworks which have served the Organisations well in the quest to become better learning Organisations.
• Developing and Nurturing Advisory Relationships with partner NGOs: Technical advisory works best when the provider and receiver of technical advisory are comfortable with each other. We have cultivated, nurtured and successfully built working relationships with all Organisations that we work with which has eased our organizational work as a Learning Adviser.
• Creating/nurturing strategic linkages: We have led in linking the partner Organisations to global evidence-based frameworks within their thematic focus notably the end violence campaign (www.end-violence.org), INPIRE (http://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/272996), Peripheral Vision Int (www.pvinternational.org)&various national agenda setting spaces in specific countries.
• Promoting Organizational Visibility and Credibility: Organisations, particularly NGOs are only as good as their reputation thus visibility and credibility are very key to organizational growth. Through building the necessary skills set within Organisations to monitor, analyze, creatively document, package and share information in strategic spaces, partner Organisations have grown their clout in their thematic focus and geographical reach both physically and in the virtual world by being more evidence based.
• Established Communities of Practice: Working in silos has been a major undoing for most NGOs. we have been successful in organizing partner NGOs into learning cohorts and eventually I have graduated them to Communities of Practice where learning and sharing is more structured and supported. Through mentorship of partner NGOs with programmatic convergence; the full benefit of this will be realized in the future.

Program Manager, Education, HIV/AIDS & Public Health, Nov 2012 – Aug 2016, Inter-Religious Council of Uganda (IRCU).

Major Roles:

He/she supervises a multidisciplinary team of 12 specialists and 6 Officers, working with 101 Faith Based Organisation (sub grantees) in different development spheres including education, health promotion/education, Environmental health, empowerment of Vulnerable populations (orphans and women), Care and treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS, research and advocacy, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, Psychosocial support as well as organisational development.

He/she leads in senior stakeholder management and strategy for the docket, resource mobilisation, budget control, periodic reporting at different levels including donors, board, supporting overall organisational advocacy agendas and oversees programming processes at different levels including generation of research to inform practice. He/she is the principal contract manager for all sub grantees in Public health and HIV/AIDS.

He/she supports the Head of Programs and Secretary General to generate informative position papers on topical issues and regularly uses availed media channels to articulate the issues in his/her docket to inform and influence policy and resource allocation at national level as part of the broader Civil Society Coalition.

Relevant Achievements:

• Demand Driven Advocacy: Through service provision and health education, we were able to create awareness on rights and responsibilities for both duty bearers and rights holders which led to demand driven advocacy by a wide section of people including Religious Leaders.
• Strategic Partnerships: Through advocacy, we were able to get more and more Religious Leaders to promote health within their respective faiths but more significantly to speak openly against HIV/AIDS that had continued to afflict their flock. This had a snow ball effect of getting Religious leaders to speak with one voice on health financing which significantly pushed the Government of Uganda into increasing the health share in the national budget.
• Standard Operating Procedures: Working with various faith Based Organisations which were different in structure, scope, experience and technical know-how was challenging. We however developed standard operating procedures and job aides for front line service providers as regards healthcare, support to Orphans, psychosocial support and health education/promotion. These went a long way to minimize errors, guarantee quality of service and facilitate operational research that was paramount in improving quality of service overtime.
• Guidelines for Religious Leaders: we developed easy to use guidelines for Religious Leaders to engage their brethren on various issues from an informed point of view. These guidelines were on issues like HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence, drug and substance abuse, health seeking behavior, psychosocial support using scripture and advocacy for better service provision to their brethren.
• Strengthened Public Private Partnership for Health: through the program, 18 Faith Based Health Facilities (Hospitals) were supported to gain the necessary skills, equipment, drugs and facilities to start antiretroviral treatment. These private health facilities started receiving referrals from Government health facilities which increased access to treatment to those who needed it but also facilitated prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV.
• Research and Annual National Convening: Every year we organized a stakeholders meeting at which Religious Leaders and Policy Makers would be confronted with the evidence coming out of our work and elsewhere. This meeting and the information shared therein was one of the major avenues through which major policy shifts were witnessed on health financing and improvement in supply chain management for antiretroviral drugs.

Social Protection Specialist, Jan 2010 – Nov 2012, Inter Religious Council of Uganda (IRCU).

Major Roles:

He/she takes lead in technical support and capacity building in close collaboration with the program team on developing, implementing and evaluating policy development, frameworks, strategies and programs for social protection with a focus on building national and sustainable social protection systems at all levels especially by sub grantees.

He/she keeps abreast of latest methods, ideas and research findings in social protection across sectors, including HIV/AIDS, public health, education, and nutrition, through close contact and exchanges with fellow staff as well as external, professional organizations, universities, research institutes; synthesizes, disseminates and raises the profile of this evidence and knowledge among staff, agencies and partners, through the maintenance and updating of a knowledge base on social protection with civil society networks to strengthen exchange of program information.

He/she provides technical leadership and supports the convening role of the organization including generation of thematic knowledge and ensures staff have access to this knowledge in order to develop evidence-based advocacy and interventions for organizational programming and broader strategic planning and budgeting instruments such as the National Development Plans, Poverty Reduction Strategic Plans, and any other development frameworks.

Relevant Achievements:

• Thematic guidelines, handbooks and Manuals for Social Protection: Social protection within FBOs beyond that offered by church ministers was a challenge for most FBOs. Not only did they lack the people to offer the services but also the technical skills, job aides, standard operating procedures and manuals. We developed these for the different program areas which created a foundation for increased capacity to provide social protection to a greater section of the population.
• Capacity building and mentorship for social protection: the development of human resource for social protection as an integral part of organizational programing was an important achievement. We strategically sought to mainstream social protection in all our program areas ranging from health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, gender and education to deal with the challenge of limited human resource.
• Civil Society Coordination for Social Protection: Provision of adequate social protection for communities is such an intricate affair that it involves a multiplicity of stakeholders whose coordination is paramount if service quality is not to be compromised. Working with the MGLSD, a coordination mechanism was agreed upon that brings together stakeholders periodically to share information and harmonize interventions which has positively impacted the provision of social protection including the establishment of a social protection program in the same ministry.
• Mapping of social protection service Institutions: Working with the MGLSD, we were able to map providers of social protection at different levels. This enabled various stakeholders to know who is located where, what services they provide and where specific services could be accessed. This information is available both to social protection service providers and the general public which has increased access but also collaborative action among stakeholders.
• Social Protection checklist for Organisations: Each organization depending on its focus, scope and target was supported to develop a Social Protection Checklist that enabled them to remain alive to the social protection safety net they needed to keep in place to ensure that their programs enhanced social protection at best or at worst never worsened the plight of those in need of social protection thus maintaining the principle of do not harm.
• Referral Networks and Linkages: Wide as social protection is, the need for an elaborate and systematic referral network cannot be over emphasized. Following the completion of the social protection mapping exercise, we supported FBOs to develop referral pathways for different cases basing on one’s geographical location which increased collaborative efforts through forward and backward linkages which widened the social security safety net.
• Advocacy and Influencing Policy: we conducted operational and formative research on social protection and also made available to policy makers information on social protection from both academic and non-academic sources. We believe this advocacy contributed to the establishment of the Senior Citizens Grants and the Social Assistance Grants Empowerment programs in the MGLSD.

Head of Social Work, May 2008- Dec 2009, Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation-Uganda.

Major Roles:

He/she heads all social work services for the organization and works to create mechanisms at Agency and community levels to meet the needs of HIV infected children and their families in a sustainable manner.

He/she creates and strengthens linkages for meeting and responding to clients’ psychosocial needs/rights, mounts client education campaigns to improve health seeking behavior and coordinates countrywide psychosocial programming.

He empowers clients to identify Income Generating Activities (IGAs), within their locality, spearheading HIV testing campaigns especially “Know Your Childs HIV status campaigns as well as ensuring a comprehensive response to children’s needs/rights at all levels.

He supports overall organizational advocacy and public education agenda on psychosocial support and better health service provision.

Relevant Achievements:

• Community safety net for HIV infected children and their families: We established community peer support groups and a network through which social support was provided to the affected.
• Expanding HIV care for children nationally: Care and treatment for HIV infected children was only available in Urban centers at the time but through a public private partnership, we made it available in rural areas as well.
• Know your child’s HIV status Campaign: We pioneered this campaign through which we identified children who were infected with HIV early enough which increased their treatment outcomes. This campaign was later adopted by Ministry of Health nationally.
• Guidelines for psychosocial care and support: the care and supported needed by children and adults infected and affected by HIV/AIDS was not common knowledge. We succeeded in developing guidelines to ensure adequate response.
• Stigma and Discrimination: we were able to turn the tide on stigma and discrimination especially as regards HIV/AIDS. We got Religious leaders to appreciate that their previous stance of HIV/AIDS being “wages of sin” was making a bad situation worse. We thus got more and more religious leaders talking more agreeably towards people living with HIV/AIDS and offering them both physical and emotional support which was such a major achievement. This eventually rubbed off on the congregations in the different faiths which overall reduced the stigma and discrimination directed towards people living with HIV/AIDS.

Rehabilitation & Protection Officer, Oct 2005- Apr 2008, Friends of Children Association (FOCA) Network for Adolescents and Youth of Africa (NAYA).

Major Roles:

He/she leads in working with target communities to prevent children from getting on the streets through community sensitization and promotion of children rights and wellbeing the absence of which can lead to children running away from home.

He/she provides psychosocial support to children living on the street either part time or permanently and explores with them through counselling the available options for them to abandon the street including shelter at the drop-in center.

He/she identifies children abusing drugs and alcohol both in the community and on the streets and works to ensure they are supported to
abandon this habit through linkage to rehabilitation services and peer support networks of people/children trying to quit alcohol and drug abuse.

He/she leads in educating children and their communities about Sexual Reproductive Health particularly for adolescents and ensures that
those who need safe sex commodities know where to get them and most importantly how to use them.

He/she leads in preparation and ensuring resettlement of street and neglected children happens in accordance with the laws in cooperation with relevant authorities. This includes working with existing relatives and assessing potential foster homes to receive children being resettled.

He/she leads empowerment initiatives of vulnerable children and their families with tailor made income generating activities, creation of a support network for OVC at community level, vocational skills training for OVC, implementation of out of school youth entrepreneurship schemes, promotion of abstinence and delivery of safe sex commodities.

Relevant Achievements:

• Child Rights Education and Promotion: In the early 2000s, child rights were still largely an alien subject. We were among the leading team in child rights education in the country at the time.
• Support for children living on the street: we provided a safe space for children living on the street and provided them with temporary shelter, food, sanitation facilities as well as much needed psychosocial support. Through this intervention we reached out to 3500 Children living on the streets partially or permanently in a period of 5 years.
• Rehabilitation and Resettlement: Uganda them as it is now does not have sufficient rehabilitation services for drug and substance abuse in general and for children in particular. We were able to provide that initial direct contact support and only referred complicated cases to the only Psychiatric Hospital then. We rehabilitated and resettled 812 children in 6 years. This we achieved collaboratively with other stakeholders.
• Vocational Skills Training for children: We worked to return children to school but often times we encountered children who wanted other options other than formal education. Though an apprenticeship program we facilitated 739 children to acquire vocational skills and supported them to get employment after wards.
• Income generating activities and support networks: we realized early in the program that one of the push factors for children onto the streets was poverty and lack of a community-based support network (safety net) whenever problems cropped up. We thus supported families in poor urban dwellings to start income generating activities and a support networks to help individual families absorb shocks like death of parents which would push children onto the streets.
• Safe sex commodities and education: this was a time of high HIV/AIDS prevalence in the country. We did out part in educating adolescents and communities about safe sex and went ahead to provide these safe sex commodities to those who needed them. This was done in conjunction with the Network for adolescents and Youth of Africa.

Freelance Consultant, Jan 2002- Aug 2005, ILO, UNFPA, RCQHC, Save the Children, Population Council, International Peace Support Training Center (IPSTC).

Key Roles:

Supporting different organizations as a Consulting Rapportuer to prepare for and document different processes and activities including strategic planning meetings, conferences and workshops.

Analyzing and reporting workshop/conference evaluation findings, preparation of daily recap and occasionally moderation of proceedings as required from time to time.

Nationwide data collection on Micro finance institutions and their needs, data entry, cleaning analysis and reporting, dissemination of study findings and leading data collection teams.

Offering lectures and modules to Pre deployment UN/AU Peace keepers on human rights and child protection.

Relevant Achievements:

• Revision of the National Population Policy: Supporting the National Population Council to consult all relevant stakeholders in the country (MPs, Government Officials, Local Governments, Religious/Cultural Leaders and private sector in the revision of the National Population Policy.
• Popularizing Rapporteuring Services: This was a new concept for many Organisations in my part of the world. I am happy to have contributed to its entrenchment in the development sector in Uganda.
• Event Management: Technical staff became more effective as they concentrated on delivering the content, and left the organization and coordination to me who had the time and experience to plan the event. I thus handled the requisite coordination of administrative and logistical support for seminars, workshops, conferences and retreats on behalf of institutions allowing the institution to focus on other issues.
• Facilitating Strategic Planning sessions: Because of exposure to different Organisations, I got to learn several things in different sectors including population, health, policy, advocacy, multi-year programing, civil society collaboration among other which exposure enabled me to pitch in as different Organisations underwent their programing processes.
• Nurturing of fast drafting skills: My drafting and report writing skills become impeccable with this continued work as a rapporteur. This did not only improve my report writing skills but also enabled me to learn to work with people from different cultural and professional backgrounds; which experience I believe is invaluable for this position.