By Jimmy Adiga

Let me begin by saying how profoundly honoured and exceedingly humbled I am to share my thoughts on what seems the lynchpin of our development aspirations as a Country – The Parish Development Model (PDM).

There have been at least two pronounced constituencies since the inception of this enviable development model called Parish Development Model (PDM). One group is those who out rightly claimed failure owing to similar previous government programs and not seeing significant differences in implementation approach.

The second group is of those who claimed success this time round and I belonged to this group. Though the nay Sayers seem to have been accurate in their predictions if the news of arrests of local government staff on allegations of mismanagement of the PDM funds is something to go by. The third and silent group are those who just got disgusted and kept their peace and mouth shut.

Those who claimed success have also argued that, consequence management on perpetrators of PDM fund mismanagement is the corner stone for their claim to success this time round – so it’s neither success nor loss as yet BUT something needs to be done. Otherwise, consequence management is like a post-mortem report which does not save life but only identify cause of death.

PDM is targeting the Agriculture sector and thus an inclusive program at a large scale. Agriculture is the backbone of Uganda’s economy and primary source of employment, engaging over 70% of the Country’s labour force mainly in the rural areas. It comprises almost quarter (24%) of our total GDP (World Bank 2016).

Therefore, the sector remains undeniably one of the critical determinants of improved household livelihoods and socioeconomic transformation of the country. When Parish Development Model was conceived and literature about it started circulating; our authors never disappoint in crafting enviable documents as usual.

Many of us had the hope that; it was going to create an enabling environment for small holder farmers and other poor households with access to land. It was to among others:

I) Alleviate household poverty and build sustainable livelihoods because we were raised, nurtured and educated in poor, small holder farmer household settings simply because environment then was enabling! From tobacco, cotton and other food crops produced for market, school fees was raised.

ii)Address the multiple barriers faced by today’s poor and small holder farmers and PDM in my view was poised to among others address these barriers by:

1. Connecting small holder farmers to markets thereby making agriculture a worthy enterprise of purpose not chance as is now.
2. Establishing strong Community-based supply chain providing the much needed technical services and inputs to small holder farmers.
3. Supporting small holder farmer investments in their farms by providing affordable access to convenient agro-finance loans.
4. Stimulating growth of small and medium private Agro-Enterprises in the rural areas and within proximity of the farmers.

iii) Help smallholder farmer households increase their farm incomes, build their resilience to socio-economic shocks, improve food security and nutrition thereby ultimately improved child and maternal health and hence lower mortality and better learning outcomes for children.

iv) In terms of achievements in the Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), PDM was set to achieve or directly impact achievement of 10 of the 17 SDGs as follows:

1. SDG1: End Poverty or Zero Poverty by enhancing household income
2. SDG2: Zero Hunger by promoting NOT only food security BUT Nutrition.
3. SDG3: Good Health and well-being by promoting nutrition-intensive species of crops and poultry/ livestock.
4. SDG4: Quality Education as smallholder farmers will be able to afford scholastic materials for their children as it used to be since household incomes are enhanced.
5. SDG5: Gender equality by putting women at the centre of its implementation as women have proven to be the development actor at the household level.
6. SDG7: Affordable and Clean Energy as households move from using wood fuel to solar energy as they can afford.
7. SDG8: Decent work and economic growth as our skilled and unemployed youth would be engaged in the PDM implementation at the various levels thereby addressing youth unemployment which is a national catastrophe in the offing.
8. SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities as life in the rural area will be worth a living thereby addressing rural-urban migration.
9. SDG12: Responsible Consumption and production.
10. SDG13: Climate Action/ Change by advocating and implementing climate-smart Agricultural practices.

Unless we refocus the PDM; we are at risk of doing the same things but expecting different results and scholars have a cleaver name for such people. Given the potential benefits of the model, refocusing goes without emphasis and should adopt three approaches with four key focus areas and clearly identified participants.

The three approaches include Direct service delivery approach; Market Development Approach and thirdly a Combination of the two. The direct delivery approach is appropriate in our situation of grossly underdeveloped market characterised by market imperfections, existence of poor quality inputs, shortages and excess supplies in different parts of the country etc.

This will set a Lowest Common Platform (LCP) on which all smallholder farmers operate in the Country. The Government through PDM secretariat will play a hands-on role in training farmers to ensure same information is shared based on a pre-developed training material/ manual; supplying inputs from a government-certified body such as NARO for quality control and also creation of self-employed carder of youth to provide services to their community.

Market-led approach is where PDM facilitates value chain players towards “Making Markets Work for the Poor” (MMW4P), focusing on partnerships with NGOs and Private sector players and strengthening their capacity and sharing experiences and lesson learned during the initial stages of direct implementation. The focus during implementation of each of these approaches should be:

1. Market system strengthening by building sustainable pro-poor value chains in each of the selected value chains under the PDM. This will ensure increased production and thus income, adaptation of new farming techniques for the same crops being produced by farmers for decades using old techniques, connecting small holder farmers to input and output markets and finally partnering with existing market actors to strengthen their capacity in a way that benefits the small holders through better, accessible and affordable services. With understanding of the complex network and challenges of small businesses that constitute the rural value chain, PDM should position to catalysing systemic market development by creating these linkages.
2. Enhanced Nutrition; Mulnutrion remains a common phenomenon in Uganda, stunting rates increasing and this requires focusing on nutrition rich crops or Nutrition intensive agriculture to address these and related effects thereof. For a government, these are outcomes (impact) that we should track through clear metrics and reported to stakeholders including Cabinet.
3. Climate Smart Agriculture: As a Country we are grappling with the effects of climate change in many communities with diverse implications including loss of lives. So in order to address the complex impact of climate change (which is getting worse by the way) PDM should focus on:
4. Strengthening capacity of farmers and stakeholders on climate change and impacts for the communities, what they can do etc.
5. Introduction of farming techniques that reduce impact of climate change – climate smart agro-technologies.
6. Introduction of climate smart/ resilient species or varieties of crops, poultry and livestock.
7. Creating partnerships and raising awareness to deal with climate change in agriculture dependent communities.
8. Women and youth: Women in Uganda face extraordinary challenges in the rural areas yet investments directly targeted at women yields higher social and economic returns. Youth face multiple challenges from unemployment, early child bearing, social and financial pressure, rural urban migration etc. Yet they constitute over 70% of the population thereby making Women and Youth a target constituency for such a large scale development model if it’s to succeed.

For the PDM to achieve market system strengthening; Nutrition enhancement, Climate smart adaptation and addressing women and youth challenges; there are core interventions to consider based on success stories of similar development interventions elsewhere in the world. These should include among others:

Adoption of improved agronomic practices:  through creation and building capacity of model/ lead farmers, general farmers, Community Extension Workers and demonstration farms in the communities by the PDM secretariat. This will ensure top down learning and also peer learning through the model/ lead/ demo farms within the same geographical area supported by resources at the local government who are already salaried.

Improving input and output market access: Here PDM should strengthen capacity of agro vet and agro dealers as well as traders in the different value chains. Creation of produce farmer groups for the different value chains will be invaluable for collective bargaining and marketing.

Agricultural Finance: Part of the PDM funds should be targeted for financing these community led agricultural activities, pegged to the crop cycle to ensure timing of cash inflows match repayment obligations falling due. This way, repayment will be guaranteed to create a revolving Parish Development Fund and even where there is crop failure or so, insurance should be handy. This funding will be accessed by farmers, input dealers and produce traders to ensure services are available to farmers and buyers are also available with cash to buy produce so loans can be repaid. Partnerships with private financiers like banks to cover any financing gap will be handy too on pure commercial principles.

The role of technology in information dissemination cannot be over emphasized as well as R&D for improvement in the subsequent program implementations. By this alongside other social government programs; over the next 3 – 5 years, our communities would be different from what it’s now.

Despite having clear and concise focus areas and interventions required; without a well-structured community actors network, coordination for efficiency will be a challenge. Therefore, a model parish would be having the following actors for effectiveness of the program (which ideally should have been piloted and perfected before role out). Each group of actors play a different but connected role and require a different set of skills and skilling to do their role in the community. Just like VHTs are a critical community actor in ensuring effective health service delivery, so should be under PDM to recruit and train these actors for their roles.

Lead/ Model farmers: These may be progressive farmers within the community who are selected and trained and skilled, they link farmers within the community to markets, input suppliers and produce buyers. They are leaders of produce farmer groups for bulk sales and marketing, dissemination of messages delivered via technology to the community etc.

Demonstration Farmers: These can be established in partnership with NARO and zonal offices to demonstrate modern practices of farming, species and varieties which end up inspiring other farmers to follow suit.

General farmers: These are members of the produce farmer group and are trained by model/ lead farmers who have been trained by Community Extension Workers (CEWs). So the CEWs have few (Lead/ model farmers) members to work with for effectiveness and in turn, peer learning takes place continuously within the community.

Produce /Farmer groups: These are created and consisting of general farmers up 20 members, led by lead or model farmer. They are able to buy inputs in bulk, negotiate better, demand for quality inputs and as well as provide basic reports to PDM secretariat through the Extension Workers.

Community Extension Workers (CEWs) are para social workers trained to work with Model/Lead farmers in skilling, ensure each model farmer is partnered with 5 general farmers for best practice, peer to peer learning for scale and impact. These would be remunerated by the PDM on a modest monthly stipend to facilitate movement in the community. These are also feed in channels for pre-requisite reports from the field in terms of progress, outreach numbers, collecting impact/ success stories to motivate other communities etc.

Agro vet/ Agro input dealers: These are the private sector actors who supply inputs to the farmers and quality is key. This is why, it’s important to deliver these inputs directly at the start from a government body such as NARO etc, then later when farmers are aware of brands and breeds that yield well, the market can then operate freely.

Traders and wholesalers: these are private sector produce dealers who will buy from farmer groups for onward retail or whole sale or supply to agencies such as WFP for maize and beans etc. So it’s an intentional, deliberate and carefully crafted approach to deliver such a massive, game changing model of development the PDM.

The role of Politicians in such a large scale development programme are good in as far as mobilisation and popularising the programme is concerned, but not in technical implementation. Yes a Politician may be technical but because he has a political side, there is bound to be accusations, counter accusations and witch hunt intended or unintended which is negative energy and derails focus on real things. More so politicians suffer from “I want to be seen doing it syndrome” since everything they do MUST be rewarded with a vote so the voter MUST see them do it. Just like every problem to a carpenter requires a nail and harmer; for a politician everything MUST boil down to a vote in his/her favour. Because of this; they tend to put so much emotions to what they do or say. Worse though is, the time to the next vote is at the corner and hence planning is timewasting for them and they care less about failure of a program as long as it was done and seen being done. It gives another opportunity to stand at the podium again to be seen doing it etc etc. I am yet to see the technical team on PDM at the Secretariat in areas of financial services, agribusiness and agronomy, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) as well as Research and Development. Hence need to refocus the program, Political Carders be left to popularise the presence of the program in their constituencies; how to execute/implement should be for technical people who can create linkages between, activities, sustainability and impact measurement to be reported to the OWC, Cabinet and HE the President regularly.

The rural development or transformation models that have succeeded in the world, particularly Asia had many characteristics at implementation, some of which are enumerated above and aligned to our Country specific issues.

But if these are not addressed (Technical team at Secretariat and well thought structures to link Secretariat with Districts and with Parishes, MEL, R&D) same story like the previous programs – come and go.

The writer is an economist and retired banker