EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Buganda Kingdom Development Strategy (2001-2010)

The Royal Development Drive (RDD)

Background

Even after a century since the Europeans explored what they called the Dark Continent, Africa remains the least developed continent with the majority of its people living in abominable conditions, without sustainable democratic institutions that can tackle its numerous political and social scourges. The abandonment by Africa of its traditions and political cultures on the advent of the European colonisation, and the wholesale adoption of foreign cultures vulnerable to corruption and authoritarian rule over the colonial and post-colonial era, has made the continent lag behind, despite its enormous natural and human resources.

Through centuries of its existence, the pre-colonial Buganda Kingdom was a region of plenty in resources, rapid growth, blossoming prosperity and culture of dignity, which situation did not significantly change during the 60 years of colonization.

This condition was attributed primarily to four factors:

(i) an excellent climate and arable soils, which ensured sufficient production of food and cash crops, and a wide range of vegetables and fruits;

(ii) a well organized and respected monarchy, which was the foundation and fountain of development and civilization;

(iii) a society with virtues of hard work and achievement-orientedness; and

(iv) social cohesion along the family and clan ties, which served as a basis for voluntary communal work, entrepreneurship development, and ethical conduct.

The abolition of the monarchy on the advent of the post-colonial era and inability of existing central governments to harness regional diversity as a basis for sustainable development resulted into the collapse of the cultural and traditional institutions that erstwhile conditioned work ethics.

As a result, the remarkably declining standards of living and quality of life, the increasing feeling of dejectedness and loss of hope coupled with the rising crime and immorality, all associated with the sharply increasing poverty is the summary of the status of the rural masses and urban poor generally in Uganda and particularly in the Buganda Kingdom, Uganda’s Central Region.

According to recent studies, the major real life conditions affecting majority of people within Buganda Kingdom region are:

(i) Lack of a decent accommodation

(ii) Inability to meet basic necessities of life,

(iii) Low levels of agricultural production,

(iv) Low prices for the produce,

(v) High level of moral degradation, dishonesty and poor work ethics

(vi) Undesirable rural to urban migration,

(vii) High level of dejectedness especially among the impoverished,

(viii) High levels of unemployment, especially in the urban areas,

(ix) High incidence of preventable diseases and infirmity,

(x) High prevalence of orphanage problem,

(xi) Dishonest and poor work ethics, and

(xii) Environmental degradation.

The communities that are severely affected by these problems are those found in the rural and isolated and marginal areas of Buganda region; and the vulnerable groups, for instance; the youth, women, disabled, the children, unemployed, orphans, the old and sick, street children, fishermen and the urban unemployed.

The Rationale

In spite of the progress so far registered at the macro level, majority of Ugandans, and in particular, the people within Buganda Kingdom still live in unacceptable conditions. In fact, enormous task remains unaccomplished. The first challenge facing the government is translating the macro-based gains into sustainable benefits at community, household and individual levels. The second onus relates to inducing regional development through harnessing regional diversities and opportunities within the overall national policy framework. The third challenge is exploiting the nexus of resources and opportunities offered by the private sector and civil society. Such hurdles explain the persistence of poverty at the grass root, albeit the economic growth so far attained in Uganda.

The current national policies are an attempt to overcome such inefficiencies. Nevertheless, the existing poverty programmes at the district level still need to be complemented in an innovative way. In this respect, the traditional and cultural institutions certainly have a great potential and role to play.

The Buganda Kingdom Development Strategy

In this new millennium, the challenge for the restored Monarchy and the Kingdom as a whole is to revive and harness their traditional and cultural institution in order to play their noble role in the attaining of sustainable economic and social development at a regional level, within the greater Uganda. Certainly, this requires concerted effort in blending the cultural resources with human, physical, financial, and technological resources within a well co-ordinated framework. Accordingly, in an innovative way, the Buganda Kingdom intends to work closely and tirelessly with the central government and the private sector fraternity using that combination of resources to overcome the problem of poverty and other societal ills in Uganda. It is against that background that the Kingdom presents the Buganda Kingdom Development Strategy (BKDS), code-named ‘The Royal Development Drive (RDD)’, that will guide the Kingdom’s community development programmes within Buganda Kingdom region within the subsequent ten years (2001-2010).

The Buganda Kingdom’s Vision and Mission

The overall vision of the Buganda kingdom is ‘to have a strong monarchy and be a self-sustaining kingdom with its people enjoying both quantitative and qualitative improvement in their living conditions’.

The Buganda Kingdom Mission that will also guide the BKDS is; to facilitate a strong and united kingdom, with self-generating development, its people enjoying high quality of life and welfare, with the Kabaka and culture[1] as the foundation and fountain of this unity and development, within a united Uganda.

The Buganda Kingdom Development Strategy Objectives

The Principal Objective of the BKDS is to achieve sustainable improvement in the living standards and welfare of and for the people, with the accompanying social discipline by the year 2010, through the application of a blend of the centuries-old traditional community development and guidance practices, with contemporary development strategies.

The specific objectives of BKDS are:

(i) To achieve a descent household income as a result of improved agriculture and off-farm activities.

(ii) To achieve food self-sufficiency at the household and community level.

(iii) To attain improved quality of life through improved hygienic living standards in homesteads and investment in health services programmes.

(iv) To have a literate, skillful and competent society through investment in education programmes.

(v) To have an informed and alert society through the establishment of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) programmes.

(vi) To attain mastery of medium level technology in the field of production, processing, commerce and environmental management.

(vii) To attain commercial sector development through income savings and investment, and entrepreneurship development, at the individual and organizational levels.

(viii) To have the women and youth and other disadvantaged social groups empowered in attaining all the BKDS stated objectives.

(ix) To have the people realize their potential and aspirations through appropriate measures of socialization, mobilization, sensitization and enlightenment.

(x) To have the institutions of culture, heritage and artifacts promoted as a source of social discipline and income.

Target Population

The current official statistics estimate a population of 5,500,000 persons living in Buganda region, with majority (approximately 85%) subsistence farmers living in the rural areas. This entire population will be the primary beneficiaries of the proposed development strategy. The secondary beneficiaries will be the other Ugandan communities living outside the Kingdom, who subscribe to similar traditional values. The mobilization programmes through the public media, for instance, is likely to benefit a greater number Ugandans, especially given the fact that Luganda language is used by many of Ugandans. At the national level, Uganda as a nation will benefit from the implementation of the BKDS as prosperity in nation results into peace and stability.

However, special consideration will be given to the vulnerable groups, namely; the old, Widow, Orphan, People with AIDS (PWAs), the landless, squatters, fishermen, migrants, refugees and others.

BKDS Overall Strategies

Using the Monarchy, the Executive, and the Kingdom’s administration as the principle movers of the whole process, the following major strategies will be deployed:

(i) Establishing an all-participatory development mechanism revolving around the monarchy, its administrative structures, and the Local Government System;

(ii) Setting goals in rhythm with the Central Government’s overall development policies, priorities and strategies, and synchronized and harmonized with the plans and activities of the Local Authorities, the NGOs and CBOs in the Kingdom;

(iii) Blending of the successful and cherished centuries-old traditional/cultural practices and traits of traditional community mobilization and developmental guidance and advocacy with the modern management systems to formulate the BKDS management and implementation system;

(iv) Rejuvenation of the popular self-help spirit, coupled with limited facilitation, for the construction and maintenance of community-based infrastructure;

(v) Exploitation of cultural norms and values for the development of community infrastructure, entrepreneurship and commerce;

(vi) Institutionalization of ‘Role modeling’ as a key requirement for all leadership in the Kingdom; and

(vii) Establishment of the institution of the ‘Royal Reward System’ whereby excellent performers, in recognition of exemplary performance towards BKDS success (individuals or groups/communities), will be appropriately honoured.

BKDS Implementation Levels and Modalities

For effectiveness implementation of the BKDS, it will necessitate for each of the BKDS programme presented below to bear a two-tiered implementation levels namely, the Kingdom/Central-based Approach and, the Grass-root/Community-based Approach thus:

1) The Kingdom/Central-based Approach

This will be a quasi-macro approach under which appropriate programmes and projects under each BKDS sector will be:

(i) suitably developed under the BKDS by the Kingdom or in partnership with other organizations/bodies for and with the participation of the targeted community; and

(ii) implemented by the targeted communities where the Kingdom/BKDS structure plays the role of awareness creation, publicity, popular mobilisation and training, provision of developmental guidance and positive coercion of the whole or targeted sections of the Kingdom community, co-ordination of programme activities, monitoring, and guiding the whole process to ensure programme/project success.

Under positive coercion, among other things, relevant authorities would be influenced to pass relevant by-laws and policies that would (i) help combat immoral behaviour, laziness, idleness, drunkardness, corruption, fraud, etc… and (ii) facilitate the efficient and effective implementation of the BKDS programmes/projects.

2) The Grass-root/Community-based Approach

Under this micro-approach, the Kingdom, through its relevant agents/NGOs and project officers will:

(i) facilitate the target beneficiaries to form CBOs for the purpose of developing and implementing viable projects within their respective communities,

(ii) establish pilot or demonstration schemes deemed necessary; and

(iii) undertake all the necessary steps and actions for sustainable implementation of the projects.

BKDS Components and Programmes

In response to the social and economic ills presented above, programmes in four sectoral components will be implemented within the overall framework of the existing government macro-economic policies and programmes.

The BKDS programmes have been selected with a view of the appropriate mix between employment and income generating activities on one hand, and socio-cultural development on the other. If resources allowed, these programmes will be implemented as an integrated package, with one or a combination of components reinforcing the others.

The components outlined below are inter-related, but for the purpose of effectively managing intervention they can be categorised thus:

1) Social Sector Programmes

This includes all those programmes intended to promote social development that include:

(i) The Revitalized African Village for the Year 2005 (RAV 2005) Programme;

(ii) Health Education and Services Programme (HESP);

(iii) Education and Literacy Improvement Programme (ELP);

(iv) Community Work “Bulungi Bwansi” Schemes (CWS);

(v) Water and Sanitation Programme (WAS);

(vi) Civics and Leadership Development Programme (CALD); and

(vii) Ethics, Culture and Heritage Promotion Programme (ECHP).

2) Economic Sector Programmes

This sector embraces all those programmes and endeavours intended to create and expand income-earning opportunities, which include:

(i) Agriculture as a business programme (AGRAAB);

(ii) Investment and Industry Promotion Programme (IIP); and

(iii) Micro Enterprise and Appropriate Technology Development Programme (METD).

3) Social Assistance Sector Programmes

These programmes are specifically intended to assist those disadvantaged social groups who have low access to social services, productive assets, and are generally weak to compete for opportunities. The programmes will include:

(i) Disadvantaged Facilitation Programme ((DFP);

(ii) Women Empowerment Programme (WEP); and

(iii) Youth Development Programme (YDP).

4) Production Support Sector Programmes

These comprise all those programmes that support or facilitate effective implementation of the three programmes outlined above. These will include:

(i) The Royal Micro-Finance Scheme (RMFS);

(ii) Advocacy, Training and Mass-Mobilization for Development Programme (ATMD);

(iii) Sustainable Management of Natural Resources Programme (SMNR);

(iv) Hard work Enhancement Programme (HWEP);

(v) Commerce and Marketing Development Programme (CMDP); and

(vi) Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure Programme (ICTP).

The BKDS Implementation Institutional framework and Capacities.

1) The BKDS Political Responsibility

The Kingdom’s development strategy will be implemented within the existing Kingdom administration set-up in order to benefit from the Kingdom’s traditional community mobilizational role and guidance capacities. The onus of policy formulation and the overall administration of the BKDS will be handled by the Buganda Monarchy and its Executive; with the Kabaka as the Patron and chief mobilizer, and the Katikkiro as the Trustee of BKDS. The Lukiiko, through its BKDS designated sub-committee will be charged with the advisory and guidance responsibility.

2) BKDS Managerial and Operational Responsibility

To shield from the institution’s day to-day bureaucracies, the BKDS will directly be managed through the Kingdom’s quasi-autonomous body, the Buganda Development Agency (BDA) with a full time Secretariat.

The field management of the implementation of the BKDS programmes will be the responsibility of the Programme Implementation Units (PIU’s) that will be established at the county, sub-county, parish, and village levels, and relevant NGOs and specifically established companies/organizations for a given purpose.

3) BKDS Financing

A 5-year detailed rolling programme together with the associated budget will be developed after the launch of this strategy by the BDA Secretariat. The Buganda Kingdom does not, however, collect taxes for its operations. Essentially it survives on voluntary services and donations. Given the prominence of the impact this development strategy will have on the development of the community within the Kingdom and without, there is great need to establish formal and informal channels of soliciting and directing financial and technical support to the specified programmes and projects for their successful implementation. Such channels to be exploited will include:

(i) Direct Central Government grants/subventions and technical assistance for specific development activities;

(ii) Direct participation of the Local Authorities in programme implementation;

(iii) Collaboration with the numerous NGOs and CBOs operating in the Kingdom;

(iv) The establishment of and contribution to the much desired Community Development Royal Endowment Fund;

(v) Direct support from Donor Agencies for specific activities;

(vi) Contributions from public and private organization/companies and individuals, taking interest in community development in whatever form;

(vii) Active voluntary and self-help participation of each and everybody within the Kingdom irrespective of status, ethnicity, etc…

4) BKDS Management Systems

To ensure a systematic and transparent method of executing the Kingdom mandate, a flexible mechanism appropriate for getting things done under variable conditions will be put in place through appropriate policies, guidelines and standard operating procedures. Appropriate management systems, procedures, and guidelines necessary to efficiently and effectively execute the Kingdom’s Development Strategy will be established at the outset.