A few months back the government of Uganda rolled out its flagship community development program, commonly known as Parish development model (PDM) with an aim to pull our 39% of its population from the subsistence production to the money economy. This was divided into seven well thought out pillars through which all government processes would be brought from the centre to parishes, the nearest decision-making level thought. What has been heavily taught and understood is the third pillar of financial inclusion, but PDM happens to be more than just that.
Local development on the other hand, though relatively a young theory in social sciences, is based on the identification and use of the resources and endogenous potentialities of a community, neighbourhood, city, municipality or their equivalent. The local development approach considers the endogenous potentialities of territories, it also refers to the actions and activities in which individuals and communities participate. It occurs in the social, political, economic, and geographical areas where those individuals and communities exist. It derives from both their physical proximity to those who participate in it and are affected by them and because those individuals and groups who participate in them are familiar and have significant status in them and influence over the outcomes.
When trying to bring some meaning to the concept of local development we need to identify the particular or levels of the administrative, economic, and political structures where development takes place. And in the case of PDM this is where Parish model concept comes in, in operationalisation of this development model by government, because service delivery by the public sector is a development process as it directly involves individuals, groups and communities and occurs in the area where they live and are socially, economically, and politically active.
The decentralised healthcare and education provision through health posts, schools and agricultural extension services through PDM are all local development activities, where local people and communities are involved in the demand for, planning, management and delivery of these services is important for local development, through definition of local priorities, community resourcing, management of school construction and operation by school committees involving parents and teachers; Operation, maintenance and development of local water supply systems by local committees; smallholder farmers forming groups to demand access markets and disseminate extension information to manage water and other local resources or to improve local roads or bridges.
All these are embedded in the seven PDM pillars and if well implemented can magically catapult communities into accelerated development.
Poverty and its impacts are more experienced at the local level, and it is at this level that efforts to tackle poverty must be effective.
Therefore, all stakeholders must ensure the effectiveness of PDM at all levels of implementation.
Community based efforts to tackle poverty can be a powerful force, and there are many examples of positive changes that communities have brought about through their own processes, the first year of PDM implementation has proved that communities can identify their enterprises, plan, budget and allocate available resources in their own way and achieve milestones.
However, for this to happen, shortcomings that would affect its effective implementation must be delt with. Furthermore all stakeholders at all levels must own it, make it their own program and further guide the beneficiaries on the right decisions regarding enterprise selection that yield quick return.
The author is the RDC for Kalungu
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