Empowered and Sustainable Communities

The Ganda Foundation’s Empowered and Sustainable Communities Programme (ESC) in Uganda is starting a Pilot Project in the Buikwe District.  The ESC Programme has been carefully positioned by the Ganda Foundation as a People’s Programme as this will be critical to its sustained success.  The Programme has strong support and sponsorship at Ministerial, Parliamentary, Kingdom and District levels.

The proposed scope of ESC Programme activities in the Pilot Project in the Buikwe District has been aligned with appropriate delivery and funding partner organisations to allow the maximum breadth and depth of the project scope to be delivered, and therefore the most far-reaching People-centric outcomes to be achieved.

The pilot remains in its early stages of scoping as the Ganda Foundation is keen to engage potential delivery and funding partners to help shape the optimal project scope, to accelerate the delivery of maximum benefits for the people of Buikwe. 

The proposed pilot project work streams include, (1) WWE solutions to provide clean drinking water and sustainable electricity supplies, working in partnership with AET, (2) Healthcare ICT solutions to support appropriate data capture and sharing to improve access to health and wellbeing services, (3) Education solutions (ICT+) to encourage community based learning and sustainable development innovation, working in partnership with WPO, (4) Micro-credit models to encourage cooperative based agriculture, and (5) Fair-Trade models to provide a sustainable route to market for local producers.

The focus of the Buikwe Pilot Project is on promoting community sustainability and releasing the potential of the People by empowering them to succeed.  The target outcomes of the Project map directly to a range of development indicators including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Department for International Development (DFID) targets and World Health Organisation (WHO) outcomes.

The Project has the potential for being a Sustainable Demonstrator for the Government of Uganda and is critical given Uganda’s current role as President of the 69^th UN General Council and its role, through Sam Kutesa, in leading the international response to developing a transformative post-2015 development agenda.

The Ganda Foundation are therefore keen to engage with all relevant International Agencies, NGOs and Government Departments who could support this project and deliver a Blueprint for replication in other Districts in Uganda and potentially in other developing countries.

Moving from this initial demonstrator pilot in Buikwe, to achieving repeatable mainstreaming of sustainable community based models of development is the GF’s goal, working in partnership to accelerate and sustain the target people-centric outcomes.