Museveni endorses Acholi revival plan championed by Owiny-Dollo

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President Yoweri Museveni has embraced former Chief Justice Owiny-Dollo's "Rocco Paco" initiative as a poverty alleviation strategy for the Acholi people and promised to give it full support.

Museveni confirmed his support for the programme while speaking as the chief guest at the homecoming and thanksgiving ceremony of Chief Justice emeritus Alfonse Owiny-Dollo on March 14, 2026, at the Kenneth Kaunda Liberation Grounds in Gulu city.

His remarks followed appeals from local leaders and some National Resistance Movement cadres urging the President to embrace and support the Rocco Paco initiative.

In December 2023, Owiny-Dollo and Dr Olara Otunnu pioneered the Rocco Paco movement as a way of reawakening Acholi society from what they described as moral decadence and social disintegration that had pushed many people into purposeless poverty, characterised by drunkenness, laziness, dishonesty and irresponsible living.

While delivering his speech as the chief guest at the function, President Museveni said he welcomed the movement because it focuses on poverty alleviation, which he said aligns with his philosophy of "jolo pii", translated as fetching or collecting water after a heavy rainfall.

Museveni uses the "jolo pii" philosophy as a metaphor describing Acholi land as having vast tracts that remain underutilised and could be used for production to help communities overcome poverty.

He also applauded Owiny-Dollo for promoting what he called "production by the masses," which he said the Acholi people should embrace in order to get out of poverty.

Alfred Okwanga, the mayor of Gulu city, told President Museveni that the Rocco Paco initiative is a collective local enterprise aimed at reviving society and encouraging people to become more productive.

Okwanga said the movement has already encouraged many people to work harder to improve their lives at both the family and community levels.

Similarly, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) secretary general, Richard Todwong, applauded Owiny-Dollo for introducing an ideology that he said is helping to transform lives by reviving cultural, social and economic values.

Todwong said that as a son of the soil serving in government under the NRM, he would work closely with Owiny-Dollo to ensure that the Rocco Paco movement changes the lives of the Acholi people.

Dr Olara Otunnu, the co-chair of Rocco Paco, together with Owiny-Dollo, said the initiative is giving hope to the people of Acholi who had begun to lose their sense of responsibility in the fight against poverty.

Otunnu said that through the initiative, many people in Acholi are now embracing hard work through renewed focus on agriculture, social reconstruction in terms of morality and the revival of the education sector through Dero Kwan, translated as "granary for education", which provides scholarships for less privileged learners in the Acholi sub-region.

Last year, the "Dero Kwan" programme, a subset of Rocco Paco, sponsored at least 64 students in Senior One at various secondary schools as the first cohort of beneficiaries and the scholarship programme is continuing.

Otunnu recently told the press that the initiative requires about sh20b to support this year's cohort.