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About Uganda
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The first Peace Corps Volunteers in Uganda were a group of 35 secondary education teachers who arrived in the country on November 16, 1964. By 1967, the program had more than doubled in size, and in 1968, a health program was initiated with 15 additional Volunteers. As the Peace Corps program expanded in Uganda, several other projects were added such as fisheries, agriculture, vocational education, and surveying. Peace Corps terminated its program in 1973 due to civil unrest under then President Idi Amin.
In 1989, President Museveni met with Peace Corps officials to discuss a renewed Peace Corps presence, and nine months later the Ugandan government extended a formal invitation to Peace Corps. The 1964 agreement was subsequently reactivated, and Volunteers returned to Uganda in June 1991, with the first 15 sworn in on August 31, 1991. The program continued to grow, with projects in primary education, technical education, civil engineering, community conservation, and micro enterprise development.
In May 1999, the program in Uganda was suspended due to local security concerns. At the time of suspension, there were 75 Volunteers working in Primary Education Teacher Training, Women in Small Enterprise, and Natural Resources Management programs, and an expansion into the health sector had been planned. These projects reflected priority needs identified by the Ugandan government in its efforts to reform its educational system, promote sustainable growth in key sectors, and move to a more liberalized market economy.
Over the next year, two Peace Corps teams visited Uganda to assess the security situation and identify potential regions and criteria for programming. At the invitation of the Ugandan government, a decision was then made to reopen and field staff began work in August 2000. Experience with past closures have helped the program develop in ways that make future stoppages less likely and when they occur, less burdensome.
Selected as one of the five countries to pilot the Global Health Service Partnership (GHSP), Uganda received its first cohort of 11 Volunteers in July 2013. The doctors and nurses served as adjunct faculty in five graduate medical schools across the country. At the time of its closure in December 2018, the GHSP had deployed a total of 54 GHSP Educator Volunteers who taught and mentored 2,557 across the partner institutions. The Advancing Health Professionals (AHP) program was a successor to the GHSP in August 2023. Under the program, Volunteers provided clinical training to students at medical schools.
In recent years, Peace Corps has expanded its programming to all regions of the country except Karamoja that is yet to come on board after a full security review. The actual placement of Volunteers is done after conducting the assessments that would ensure the safety, security and health of all the Volunteers.
Post has gradually increased the number of Volunteers working in Uganda, focusing primarily on disease prevention, health promotion, and small-scale economic development, including agriculture, water and sanitation and early childhood education. Although reduced from a past average of 170 Volunteers working in the Education, Health and Agribusiness sectors, the number of Volunteers working in Uganda continues to grow. The Education Volunteers are assigned as members of staff in various primary schools around the country while their Health and Agribusiness colleagues work with non-governmental, faith-based, and community-based organizations, as well as health centers and local government which are selected on the basis of the prevalent community needs.
Over the years, Peace Corps Uganda has placed Response Volunteers who are experienced professionals to undertake short-term, high-impact service assignments in communities. Peace Corps Response Volunteers apply technical skills to fulfill their assigned roles with minimal training and are greatly appreciated by host communities.
The Virtual Service Pilot, which began after the global evacuation of Volunteers at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, continues and expands the work of Peace Corps. It has since been able to connect qualified U.S. citizens with host country counterparts to meet partner requests in new ways—from supplementing on-the-ground Volunteer efforts to reaching regions where Volunteers cannot go. Participants collaborate virtually with counterparts to complete project tasks, donating 5-15 hours per week for 3-6 months.
To learn more about the Peace Corps in Uganda, check out our latest annual report.
