Joseph Rao Kony (born September 1961) is a Ugandan militant and warlord who founded the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Peacekeepers, the European Union, and various other governments including the United Kingdom and United States.

An Acholi, Kony served as an altar boy in his childhood. After the Ugandan Civil War, Kony participated in the subsequent insurgency against president Yoweri Museveni under the Holy Spirit Movement or the Uganda People's Democratic Army before founding the LRA in 1987. Aiming to create a Christian state based on dominion theology, Kony directed the multi-decade Lord's Resistance Army insurgency. After Kony's terror activities, he was banished from Uganda and shifted to South Sudan largely between 2005 and 2006 due to intense military pressure from the Ugandan army and a peace deal between Sudan and southern rebels.

Kony has long been one of Africa's most notorious and most wanted militant warlords. He has been accused by government entities of ordering the abduction of children to become child soldiers and sex slaves. Approximately 66,000 children became soldiers, and 2 million people were displaced internally from 1986 to 2009 by his forces. Kony was indicted in 2005 for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, but he has evaded capture. He has been subject to an Interpol Red Notice at the ICC's request since 2006. Since the Juba peace talks in 2006, the Lord's Resistance Army no longer operates in Uganda. Sources claim that they are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), or South Sudan. In 2013, Kony was reported to be in poor health, and Michel Djotodia, president of the CAR, claimed he was negotiating with Kony to surrender.

By April 2017^[update], Kony was still at large, but his force was reported to have shrunk to approximately 100 soldiers, down from an estimated high of 3,000. Both the United States and Uganda ended the hunt for Kony and the LRA, believing that the LRA was no longer a significant security risk to Uganda. As of 2022, he is reported to be hiding in Darfur.

Kony was born in September 1961 in Odek, a village in Omoro District near Gulu. He is a member of the Acholi people. His father, Luizi Obol, was a farmer and lay catechist of the Catholic Church. Kony's mother, Nora Oting, was an Anglican and also a farmer. He was either the youngest or second-youngest of six children in the family. His older sister, Gabriela Lakot, still lives in Odek. He enjoyed a good relationship with his siblings, but was quick to retaliate in a dispute, and when confronted, would often resort to physical violence. Kony never finished elementary school, dropping out at age 15. He was an altar boy until 1976. He married Selly and together they had a son, Ali Ssalongo Kony.

The overthrow of Acholi President Tito Okello by Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Army (NRA) during the Ugandan Bush War (1981–1986) had culminated in the mass looting of livestock, rape, burning of homes, genocide, and murder by Museveni's army. The acts committed by the Museveni's NRA, now known as the Uganda People's Defence Force, led to Kony's creation of the LRA. The insurgencies gave rise to concentration camps in northern Uganda where over 2 million people were confined. The government burned people's properties using helicopter gunships, killing many. There were forced displacements in the northern region. International campaigns called for all camps to be dismantled and for the people to return to their former villages.

In 1987, Kony joined the anti-government Ugandan People's Democratic Army. The same year, Kony claimed that he was possessed for the first time by a spirit named "Juma Oris", which was the same name as that of the still living UPDA founder; the spirit Juma Oris would remain Kony's spiritual guide for numerous years. While with the UPDA, he founded the precursor to the Lord's Resistance Army and in early 1988, he founded a wing of the United Democratic Christian Army; both groups were later defeated by Kony's LRA and absorbed into their ranks.

In March 1988, roughly six months after joining the UPDA, Kony rose to prominence as the new leader of the Holy Spirit Movement, previously led by Alice Auma (also known as Alice Lakwena and often described as a cousin to Kony), who had fled to Kenya earlier in the year. In August 1988, he kidnapped Auma's father, Severino Lukoya, who had similarly proclaimed himself to be a medium, and held him prisoner for six months to dissuade him from attempting to take over the movement from Kony.