Partnership with communities in Uganda

The City Community Challenges (C3) Project was started in 2000 with support from the UK Department for International Development (DfID), equally split between Uganda and Zambia, to test out innovative ways of reducing urban poverty through community initiatives.The key objectives of the project were to: (i) contribute to improvement of incomes, livelihoods and opportunities of poor people (ii) address the capacity weaknesses of poor communities (iii) promote sustainable poverty eradication initiatives through creation of appropriate institutional arrangements and planning processes, and leverage matching resources, and, (iv) enhance collaboration between communities, local governments, NGOs and other local players including the private sector. It was also intended, in developmental terms, to establish an effective mechanism through which development agencies could support small-scale community initiated projects in partnership with local authorities.

The project had a unique methodology including the following elements:

• The funds used in the project were used to leverage matching funds in kind or other inputs. For example, the beneficiaries of the houses contributed provide their own labour during construction of their houses, thus linking participation to ownership to ensure sustainability
• The beneficiaries were identified by the communities from among themselves using their own indicators of poverty.Thus C3 interventions took different shapes in different locations – from shelters to micro enterprises
• C3 promoted a partnership ethos because it drew in NGOs, businesses, local governments and other local actors, and a variety of national actors (e.g. central government ministries, training and research institutes, the Uganda Local Authorities Association, etc.) who participated as part of the National Coordination Committee.

In Uganda the project was piloted in Kawempe and Mpumudde Divisions of Kampala City and Jinja Municipality, respectively.The beneficiary communities in those divisions determined the nature of investments: those in Kawempe Division opted for micro-finance schemes to enable them to go into business while their counterparts in Mpumudde Division preferred a housing scheme to address the problem of shelter.

Source: Kiyaga-Nsubuga 2006

To view the background paper, click here

To view the country profile for Uganda, click here