The Community Development Problem

In spite of the already applied effort towards community development, the large majority of the people are living in abject poverty and living in deplorable conditions. Disease and general poor health seem to have taken root; hygiene standards are well below desirable; the numbers of the destitute and street children are rising each day; there seems to be no opportunity plans for the expanding numbers of the jobless illiterates and semi –illiterates flocking the urban centres resulting in the threatening of general security and the rule of law; illiteracy levels are still high; the nutrition standards and growing food security situation seriously need boosting; the environment is under threat; the cultural and moral values are largely eroded; etc.. It is evident that, even where both Government, self and externally assisted development effort became available, its impact on the improvement of the people’s living conditions has been hardly felt.

As a result, the remarkably declining standards of living and quality of life, the increasing feeling of dejectedness and loss of hope, and the rapid rise in rural to urban migration especially among the youths, coupled with 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.

The Buganda Kingdom Community Development Initiative

Against the above background and the need to expeditiously secure improvement in quality of life, the Buganda Kingdom Monarchy has taken up the challenge and developed a 10-year community development strategy, the Buganda Kingdom Development Strategy (BKDS), code-named ‘The Royal Development Drive (RDD)’, as a mechanism of joining other developmental forces on the ground to decisively fight the societal ills.

The BKDS is based on (i) the overall vision of the Buganda Kingdom which 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’, and (ii) the Buganda Kingdom mission which 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 as the foundation and fountain of this unity and development, within a united Uganda’.

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.

This strategy is integrated, innovative and focused at community development. The Strategy’s unique strength is the optimal exploitation of the Kingdom’s potential by blending the centuries old traditional all cherished practices and traits with contemporary development strategies to ensure sustainable community development. The BKDS thus explores the developmental ideals of the Kingdom’s culture and traditions in order to invigorate the impoverished people in the Kingdom into a dignified, cultured, disciplined, honest and hardworking community progressively, advancing towards better and civilized living.

The all-participatory integrated strategy focuses at waging a 10-year sustained campaign against the degrading societal ills particularly: poverty, unhygienic living conditions, food insecurity, malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, immorality, and environmental degradation, and evolves around the Uganda Government’s policies and priorities that are focused towards community development.

To address the societal ills, the BKDS has conceptually been developed with four key sectors namely:

1) Social Development Sector

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

(i) The “viable home” with the basic elements of hygienic homestead with decent living housing, kitchen with energy saving stoves, clean courtyard, animal husbandry stays, produce sun-drying racks, stores, rainwater harvesting facilities, bath-shelter, pit-latrine, composite pit, organic kitchen-garden, well planned farm land for food and income (including Omusiri gwa Kabaka), agro-forestry and fruit trees, etc.;

(ii) The “Rejuvenated Sustainable African Village” with the characteristics of well maintained basic infrastructure of access roads, community schools, health centres, water sources, recreation facilities, general purpose buildings for social and administration functions, a cohesive village community knotted in the ideal moral and ethical fabric, etc;

(iii) Health Education aiming to promote education on health regarding pertinent health issues including implementation of immunization campaigns; reproductive health education, and sensitization prevention of disease and epidemics;

(iv) Education and Literacy to support literacy programs aimed at enhancing school enrollment levels among the school-going-age population of the kingdom, at providing educational support for the poor, and to promote village based adult education towards the eradication of illiteracy;

(v) Community Work “Bulungi Bwansi” which places emphasis on community ownership and safe upkeep and efficient use of commercial facilities;

(vi) Water and Sanitation with the aim of provision of safe water and public health within the confines of each homestead, local institutions, and village;

(vii) Civics and Leadership aiming at awareness creation and education in matters of leadership, civil rights and obligations; and

(viii) Ethics, Culture and Heritage to reverse the present state of immorality, inculcate the spirit of love, ideal human values and dignity within society, fight corruption, fight use of narcotic drugs, securely protect and preserver our culture and heritage and traditional values and develop and promote them to enhance good community living and for tourism;

2) Economic Development Sector

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

(i) Agriculture as a business which places emphasis on shifting from farming for subsistence to farming for profit (as a business) to raise food security and to boost domestic incomes in the rural areas;

(ii) Investment and Industry Promotion which addresses the enhancement of medium-large scale agro-based, manufacturing, technological, industrial investments, and the promotion of business management skills and entrepreneurship;

(iii) Micro Enterprise and Appropriate Technology which focus on the promotion of micro-entrepreneurship, appropriate technology and business management skills.

3) Social Assistance Endeavours Sector

These initiatives 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 and include:

(i) Disadvantaged Facilitation that set focus at providing for the disabled, aged, orphaned, and destitute and their protection in society;

(ii) Women Empowerment which particularly focus on directing affirmative action towards women empowerment in all spheres of life and children well being in general; and

(iii) Youth Development which specifically focuses on the holistic development of the youths, tomorrow’s leaders.

4) Production Support Initiatives

Endeavours under this category comprise all those actions that support or facilitate effective and sustainable community development, which include:

(i) The Royal Micro-Finance Scheme to establish village banking facilities for financing micro-economic enterprises;

(ii) Advocacy, Training and Mass-Mobilization for Development that address mass advocacy for development through capacity building mass mobilization for development, developmental coercion and guidance, etc…

(iii) Sustainable Management of Natural Resources which aim at facilitating land conservation and sustainable exploitation, the viable exploitation of the available energy resources and use of alternative energy sources particularly in the rural setting, and at restoring the rapidly declining environmental standards in the countryside;

(iv) Hard work Enhancement aiming at reversing the present state of poor work attitudes, work ethics and integrity in society;

(v) Commerce and Marketing Development aiming at promoting, processing and marketing of rural produce in particular; and

(vi) Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure with the emphasis on development of computer literacy and efficient information dissemination to the communities.

The Kingdom’s Development Strategy intends to address and abate the major societal ills within a period of 10-years. The overall responsibility of the successful management and implementation of the BKDS has been vested in Buganda Kingdom’s body corporate, the Buganda Development Agency.

This submission presents the BKDS kick-off project profiles that should launch it into implementation phase right away.

Given its noble objectives, His Majesty Ssabasajja Kabaka calls upon all individuals and organizations of good will to effectively and substantially support the implementation of BKDS.

Joseph G.M. Ssemwogerere

KATIKKIRO OF BUGANDA