THE COOPERATIVES

This project is most innovative. It’s goal is to educate and train people to become self sufficient through a variety of Livelihood Projects. The returns from these projects will be used to provide food and livelihood to the participants, and a maintenance income for the Livelihood Development Services. Its success will depend on the business management capacity of the COOP members and management and its success will guarantee the sustainability of both the organization and the program. At the initial stage it will include:

        1. Environmental Conservation and Mango Growing,

        2. Micro Enterprise Development

        3. Fruit packing and juice extraction

        4. Processing and Marketing

Most of the potential clients do not have opportunities to become entrepreneurs. They are either unemployed or engaged in very small competitive businesses that sell in markets or on roadsides. These are hand to mouth businesses if lucky, with no profit margins at all

Identified clients are encouraged to develop their leadership capabilities.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION AND FRUIT GROWING PROJECT

Environmental Degradation in Eastern Uganda

The environmental degradation in Eastern Uganda has reached alarming levels and requires urgent intervention. There is the indiscriminate felling of trees for timber, firewood and acreage for rice growing that has depleted the tree cover leading to noticeable soil erosion and marked reduction in the fertility of the soils. The muddy waters in the rivers draining the area and the spectacular landslides are indicators.

Unbelievably large tracts of forest covers, which previously protected catchments areas and deterred soil erosion, have been completely destroyed in a relatively short period. Forest cover has been recorded to have been reduced from 45 percent of the area of Uganda in 1890 to 3 percent at present. The forest cover was an important contributory factor to the rainfall received in Eastern Uganda. Today, erratic rains have been the cause for anxiety to farmers. The period between November and April which was the crop growing and harvesting period is now unpredictable.

The once marginal lands or delicate ecosystems have also been invaded and turned into farmland. The result has been continued soil erosion and degradation of the aquatic ecosystems, wetlands, and hilly slopes affecting river banks including the River Nile and the Nile Basin and River Mpologoma that feed into Lake Kyoga. Deposits of silt into Lake Kyoga and the consequent development of suds, small floating islands recently almost reversed the flow of the Nile. Considerable silt is also deposited as far as Khartoum and Egypt where it affects power and irrigation dams requiring massive de-silting year after year.

In Uganda, a 100 metre strip along large rivers is a protected zone which should not be tilled. Enforcement of this law has been difficult due to high demand for arable land by the poor folks.

Possible Solution

Alleviating poverty while conserving the environment can be accomplished by planting fruit trees while inter-cropping.  These trees can provide additional benefits in the form of increased nutrition and income in selling of fruits and juice.

An effective approach is to plant fast growing nitrogen-fixing, fruit trees and shrubs on land under fallow. The root system binds the soils and reduces soil erosion and consequent water-quality degradation. These trees can provide additional benefits in the form of improved nutrition and income through the selling of fruits and juice.

Agriculture is the backbone of the economy in Uganda and the mainstay of the majority of Ugandans. More than 90% of the people’s livelihood, the dominating rural poor are dependent on farming. The main contribution to agricultural production lies with the poor, i.e., the subsistence farmers holding barely ¼ of an hectare to one hectare of land.

Poverty Alleviation in the Nile River Basin of Africa

More than a half-century of persistent efforts by the international community has not altered the reality of rural poverty. Poverty has remained stubborn in the Nile River Basin of Africa for decades. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Most of Africa’s poorest still live in rural areas and will continue for the foreseeable future. Top-down and donor driven investment programs have been less than successful.

Poverty has been exacerbated by HIV/AIDS deaths and related incapacities. Africa has the highest rate of AIDS related deaths and this will continue for the unforeseen future due to limited access to health services, education and cultural implications.

The vision of Livelihood Development International in attacking poverty embraces a much broader approach, because poverty is not only limited to less income, limited resources or lack of health services and limited education. It includes other factors like:

• lack of voice - people need avenues to express their needs or obtain redress

• lack of empowerment - people need the resources and authority to take charge of programs meant for their benefit.

• lack of good governance - people are worse off when officials are corrupt, unresponsive to local demands and unaccountable.

Seen in this light, local empowerment is a form of poverty reduction in its own right quite independent of its income effects.

For this new vision a new approach to prosperity is needed through empowerment of local communities. Livelihood Development International’s starting point is, to empower the communities we work with, by giving them the resources and authority to use them. This process cannot depend forever on emergency funds or short-lived donor programs. Direct credit and micro financing can play a big role in boosting home livelihoods, capital investment and property ownership. This vision must at some point be embedded in a permanent vibrant participatory sustainable community structure. Such a community will evolve dynamically and can be strengthened.

The vision of Livelihood Developments International in alleviating poverty is to put the local communities in the drivers seat, and give them a new set of powers, rights and obligations, which include:

• The right to be treated as people with capabilities and not objects of pity.

• The power to plan implement and maintain projects to serve their felt needs

• The right to hold politicians and officials accountable

• The power to command local bureaucrats, instead of being supplicants

• The power to hire, pay and discipline all who provide them with frontline local services  like education, health, municipal and agricultural services

• The obligation to enable women, ethnic minorities, the poorest and other long excluded groups to participate fully in economic development.

• The obligation to be accountable to the local people and not just central governments or donors.

By working in poor communities Livelihood Development International has learnt that focusing only on technical capacity will miss the huge potential that exists.

Existing capacity can best be described as the ability to solve problems. People who have survived by trying to solve problems in difficult economic and political conditions have considerable capacity to put their experience and skills to work.

What is perceived as lack of local capacity is often a reflection of the differences between the wants of the local people and the planner. Once it becomes clear that the local people are empowered to solve problems, they will at last have the incentive to the resolve current local issues. The role of the citizens becomes that of a monitor criticizing on-the-ground developments and state action or inaction.

The very act of wrestling with problems develops new skills. This means that skill development should be demand driven blended with compatible international ventures and not imposed from above.

The Nile River Basin could easily turn into a fruit-growing belt with an emphasis on environmental conservation indirectly boosting regional cooperation. Since the Nile snakes through Eastern, Central and Northern Uganda, the Sudan, Egypt with influence on Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania, river and environmental conservation will have wide ranging impact. This approach of alleviating poverty on the River Nile Basin, could be a reality in less than a decade from the time of commencing the project.

We are all part of a global environment, in which the states have the responsibility to protect the interests of their citizens. If they do not do so, the onus of responsibility extends to the international community. It is therefore, the goal of Livelihood Development International to collaborate with those living along the Nile River in empowering their local communities and then to encourage co-operation with their international neighbours along the river. Only together can poverty be alleviated.

Local Research and Commitment

Livelihood development International has completed a year long study (2003) involving 300 families along the Victoria Nile River Banks. The study has sensitized the people of the need for river conservation and collective responsibility for achieving this. The people of the communities have agreed to cooperate with this venture. They have offered free labour.

Beneficiaries

The direct beneficiaries will be mostly the participating groups of both women and youth in the project area. However, the environmental improvement will benefit a more extensive population of Uganda.

The target population is basically the rural poor of Jinja, Kamuli, Iganga, Bugererere, Mukono and Bugiri districts with emphasis on youth and women who are the most marginalized and vulnerable. HIV/AIDS has affected many families leaving the senior generation to care for their grandchildren who have no training in food production.

Location

The initial phase targets the Victoria Nile River Banks starting from Jinja up to Bukungu (Lake Kyoga). This stretch goes for approximately 175 Kilometers (350 kilometers includes both sides of the river) and the protected zone is 100 meters either side of the river bank. Given the terrain of the river bank only one half of this area is considered available for use in the project. This also means that about 40 meters from the water mark the river bank will be planted with specific trees and not fruits for adequate prevention of soil erosion.

The Fruit Growing Project needs a quick return, hence the need for inter-crops with quick money generating species, such as cassava, passion fruit, beans and groundnuts. The grafted mango tree, Boribo/Ngowe Kent is one of the most popular crops in the tropics, adaptable to a wide range of soils and relatively easy to cultivate. It will take three years to bear fruit. It is universally considered as one of the finest fruits in the world. It plays an important role in the diet of millions of people throughout the tropics in Africa, where local consumption is tremendous. One medium mango about (200g) provides more than the daily requirements of vitamin A for an adult and about ½ of the requirements of vitamin C.  Other plants will include pineapples.

FUTURE PROJECTION

It is forecast that by the end of the third year 2009 the harvesting of fruits will generate some income as well as food, with increasing revenues in subsequent years. In becoming self sufficient from that point forward, the enormous environmental and social benefits that this program offers can be realized with no further financial requirements from external sources, which will include processing and mar

CONCLUSION

This project is enthusiastically embraced by the local people. Over 300 families have been mobilized in Eastern Uganda. Youth Environment groups also exist along the Nile River Banks are participating in the project. Each of the mobilized families is to prepare half an acre of fruit trees inter-cropped with cassava, beans or passion fruit. Trees are grown at every compound and at the feeder roadsides and village paths. The trees along walkways and the compounds are open to public use and this will accord protection to those dedicated to commercial use. The budget indicates that the project will be economically viable by the fourth year.

Young Forest in 2004

Much Developed Forest (same forest as above) in 2006

For further information contact: info@LivelihoodDevelopmentAfrica.org