Who is Atim Agnes Apea? Flash Uganda Media looks at her biography, age, husband, family, tribe, achievements, and relationship with late Grace Owalla, Jacob Apea, Vice Chairperson of the Agriculture Cluster Development Project (ACDP), CEO and founder of Mama Rice and the Hope Development Initiative, the early life and education of the current Woman MP of the Amolatar District in Uganda.
Atim Agnes Apea is a politician, social entrepreneur, and women’s rights advocate from Uganda.
She founded the Hope Development Initiative (HDI) in Uganda.
Atim Agnes is also the current Amolatar District’s women’s representative to the Parliament of Uganda having been elected in 2021.
She belongs to the National Resistance Movement (NRM) political party.
Early Life and Education
Atim Agnes Apea popularly known as ‘Mama Rice’ due to the rice growing initiative she started for female farmers was born on December 28, 1972, to the late Grace Owalla (mother) in Amolatar district, Lango sub-region, Northern Uganda.
She is the firstborn in a family of eight girls. She lost her parents at an early age and was raised by her grandmother, Esseri who emphasized the value of education and hard work to her.
She got married to Jacob Apea in 2012 and gave birth to three children. Atim Agnes Apea went to VH Public School, St Catherine Girls School and Awelo secondary school.
She later joined Aduku National Teacher’s College to pursue education after failing to raise tuition fees for a direct University entry.
She later graduated from Uganda Martyrs University with a master’s degree in development studies in Uganda.
She also holds a PhD in International Development from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.
Career and Professional Work Experience
After school, Atim Agnes Apea applied and started working as a social worker with a Christian-based NGO and thereafter, she continued to work with several other NGOs.
For more than 20 years, she served as a consultant, policy analyst, and practitioner for rural development with numerous national, regional, and international organisations, including the African Union, United Nations, Commonwealth, USAID, DFID, EU, and others.
She was the Vice Chairperson of the Agriculture Cluster Development Project (ACDP), a project with a six-year involvement alliance with the Ugandan government and the World Bank to increase the commercial production of five prioritized crops in 2016.
Atim Agnes contested for the position of Woman MP, Amolatar district in 2016 but unfortunately, she did not win the elections
She was later appointed to head the Local Government Finance Commission in Kampala in 2017.
And in 2021, Agnes was finally elected as the women’s representative to the Parliament of Uganda in Amolatar District, Northern Uganda. She got 23,926 votes and won the election.
Achievements and Awards
Dr Agnes Apea is the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Hope Development Initiative (HDI), a cooperative for women farmers engaged in organic agriculture to earn income and fight injustice with over 11,000 members in the Lango sub-region of Uganda.
She is also the deputy chairperson of the Agriculture, Animal Industries, and Fisheries Committee in Uganda’s eleventh parliament.
The CEO Global awarded her as Africa’s most influential woman in agriculture.
In 2016, Atim Agnes was honored with the Presidential Golden Jubilee Award on International Women’s Day.
She has also received several awards including the Uganda Women Entrepreneurs’ Honorary Award, the Cordaid Home Based Care Award, Columbia University’s Human Rights Advocacy Award and the University of Reading’s Social Science Studentship Award.
In 2017, she was listed among the 100 most influential and inspirational women in the world in BBC’s 100 Women Program.
She helped in the raising of funds for the construction of a girls’ dormitory in Northern Uganda, Amolatar District.
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