Kasese CSOs Want Localized Development Funding
By Bikeke Saimon.
Civil Society members in Kasese district want to have direct involvement with donors in community needs assessment to have impactful local development.
The CSO’s actors are also calling for unrestricted funding to give implementing partners a leg room to make project decisions.
During the Local Leadership Lab Project Regional Consultation Meeting for Western Region organized by CAPAIDS Uganda in collaboration with the CIVICUS at Uhuru 50 Hotel Kasese town, members asserted that their direct involvement would enable them to strengthen their organizational structures and access direct funding to implement their development interventions.
CAPAIDS Uganda, in collaboration with the CIVICUS Global Alliance is leading a transformative effort called ;The Local leadership Labs Project where CAPAIDS Uganda is the National Convener.
Godson Mumbere, the executive director Vision International Actors he says its ideal that collaborations between donors and key local stakeholders start right from the co-designing of projects to avoid duplication of works and pave way for long term results.
He argues that for a long time donors have pointed out that local partners lack capacity to handle specific projects and yet the latter are not given opportunities to participate in the creation processes.
SB: Godson
Fatina Masika who is working with Great Peace Centre says local CSO’s understand the real challenges in their areas and as such it’s important that they are partial and part project designs.
She is advocating for platforms where the donor community can interface with the local partners so that they can advise on the priorities of development challenges in the region.
SB: Fatina
Kenneth Bwambale from the Centre for Citizens Conserving the Environment is advocating for institutional rather than project based funding to allow the direct implementing partners to work on the most pressing community needs.
Noume Oyot Oyaro, the Executive Director Capaids Uganda, says her organization is running a “leadership labs project” focused on giving safe space to both CSO’s and donors to appreciate the value of jointly co-designing and co-creating solutions to improve efficiency in community development.
While she was meeting CSO’s members in Kasese district on Wednesday, Oyaro said they are convening meetings with CSO members in the country to provide a platform for local and national actors who are the experts in the given community with an aim of ensuring that services go directly to the key population.
SB: Cap aid
CAPAIDS Uganda in partnership with CIVICUS has initiated the Local Leadership Lab project (LLL) to listen and provide a safe space for CSOs through dialogues and do idealization on how to overcome the challenges.
CAPAIDS Uganda is serving as a secretariat of the Local Coalition accelerator and Charter for Change working group Uganda.
Oyaro says they are working together to pilot and test coordinated, layered approaches to service delivery, develop a holistic systems-change strategy that will enable the coalition to create a new paradigm for sustainable, locally designed and locally-led development, and position the group for sustainable bilateral financing.
