Sand dams and drought-tolerant seed: DRESS-EA in Uganda’s cattle corridor

The pressure on Karamoja

Successive inadequate rainfall seasons have reduced river flows across the region, deepening water shortages and cutting agricultural productivity. The knock-on effects are measured in households, not hydrographs: rising food insecurity, malnutrition, and livestock that produce less because they walk further for water.

For pastoralists, water access is not a seasonal inconvenience — it decides whether herds stay in the sub-catchment or move, and movement is where loss and conflict tend to begin.

What the project is building

DRESS-EA supports farmers and pastoralists to adopt sustainable land, water, crop and livestock management measures. The technologies are deliberately simple and repairable, chosen so a sub-catchment committee can keep them running after the project ends.

• Sand dams, rock catchment structures and compound water harvesting systems

• Mini-irrigation infrastructure so crops can be produced through dry periods

• Boreholes and wells that reach underground water when surface sources fail

• Drought-resistant crop and pasture varieties suited to the cattle corridor

• Competitive grant schemes for household-level value addition

Where the work is happening

Implementation is concentrated in three areas of Karamoja: the Lokere catchment and its Nangoloapolon sub-catchment in Nadunget, Moroto District; the Omanimani sub-catchment in Lokopo, Napak District; and Lotisan in Moroto District.

Each site is anchored to a sub-catchment plan rather than a single structure, so a sand dam, a shallow well and a pasture plot are treated as one water system instead of three separate assets.

Why early warning sits at the centre

The project’s regional design rests on facilitating investment in early warning systems alongside the physical adaptation works — building the capacity of the institutions that issue drought information, and strengthening the knowledge management around it.

That is the gap Husika is built for. A drought bulletin that stays inside a national meteorological agency changes nothing. The same bulletin delivered as an SMS or a voice message, in the right language, to the right sub-county, in time to move a herd or plant a shorter-cycle variety, is what turns a forecast into an action.