Rwenzori Rural & Urban development organization is a community development organization with its head quarter office located in Katuguru Cell, Karogo Town council Kabarole District. It was formed on 15^th  2012 formed by 10 members and now the number has increased to 20 and working in sub counties of  Kichwamba, Bukuuku, Karangura and Karago sub county  Kabarole District.

Since 2016 RUDO has been partnering with ToroDev to advocate for better services in health, education, water, Agriculture and other sectors and a lot has been achieved.

Challenges identified by citizens and members of RUDO that needed leaders to address ; People are not informed about operation wealth creation, how does it work, who is to benefit, when are the seeds delivered?, why are seeds delivered at a wrong time?  And the Government is not doing anything to educate citizens, there is poor government planning under poor government policies? How can a soldier who does not know anything about Agriculture take over such a program?

The meeting was held  on 14^th/ December 2017  in Karago town council and duty bearers and technocrats at district and sub county level attended including, LCV was represented by Kabarole district Secretary for production, Sub county chief, LCIs, town clerk, Mayor, Criminal Investigation Department)

“I request everyone to use Me &My Leader E-participation system and be part of every discussion so that leaders can have enough issues gathered from the system which can used to plan and budget for in the next financial year”.  Said Kule Vincent leader of RUDO”

Outputs

• One Hundred and  sixty  (160)  citizens attended including
• Duty bearers attended including LCIII Bukuku  sub county, district Youth and women councilors, Community development officer, LCV was represented  by Kabarole district  Secretary for  production, Sub county chief, LCIs, town clerk, Mayor, Criminal Investigation Department  )
• Challenges affecting the Operation  wealth creation identified
• Solutions to the challenges identified
• MML e-participation system promoted.
• Recommendation set
• Action plan set

  

  “The issues collected are shared with the top duty bearers like MPs using ME and MY  LEADER SYSTEM  http://www.mmlonline.org  and also invite  them  live on radio to address the concerns raised from the  physical meetings and provide solutions.” Said David Kugoza ToroDev official.

Key comments rose from community members

• Citizens are hard working and doing everything possible to work and earn a living; people are fighting and pressing harder to fight poverty we appreciate the awareness caused by NGOs to sensitize citizens to work.
• The government of Uganda has failed to use Bottom-up- planning and this has made grassgroot people suffer with poor service delivery
• We request the Government to Scrub off the program of operation wealth creation because we have not benefited from this program.
• High taxes  have affected us and we struggle to earn a living
• We have lost trust in leadership especially the team that is heading the Operation Wealth Creation, we are not informed on how it works, who benefits from it, who heads it, where does it operate from?
• We need to have meetings and seminars to get more informed about how OWC operates

“I am grateful to RUDO and ToroDev for organizing this meeting and I want to educate citizens more about OWC, its vision  is to promote and transform the agricultural sector in Uganda from the point of view of technical leaders, political leaders, farmers, the private sector and the Operation Wealth Creation.”. Said Hon  Kadoma Florence  secretary  for production.

Hon Florence further  added Operation Wealthy Creation was launched in by the Uganda government as an intervention intended to create a system that facilitates effective National Socio-economic transformation with a focus of raising household incomes for poverty eradication and sustainable wealth creation. Its purpose is to define the responsibilities of stakeholders, spell out implementation and Mechanization of Agriculture and this involves the roles of the various stakeholders

Operation wealthy creations sensitize people to start simple, do not encroach in wetlands, use manual irrigation while waiting for mechanized irrigation and rain-fed watering.
It was launched after the president said  “I am totally against the elite island economy where there are a few rich people surrounded by a lot of under-developed people,” he said.

Operation Wealth Creation project, having started in 1996 as NAADS [National Agricultural Advisory Services], did not give satisfying results. It was upon this back ground that the government decided to deploy UPDF soldiers in 2013 to implement Operation Wealth Creation programe.

The target of Operation Wealth Creation is to make sure that all Ugandan homesteads join commercial farming year by year. Operation wealthy creation creates awareness to farmers to at least fetch water on bicycles and perform drip irrigation on their farms before the government can intervene.

“OWC encourages and boosts farmers to concentrate on growing perennial crops like Coffee, fruits, tea among other cash crops, construction of markets, rehabilitation and construction of abattoirs. Operation wealthy creation procures and distributes inputs like Robusta coffee seedlings, diary heifers, hybrid goats, piglets, and farm tractors; pasture feed seedlings, fertilizers, chicks and rabbits, irrigation equipments and components”.  The LC111 Karago Town Council.

He added that this is done through contracting formidable companies and suppliers. It recruits and facilitates extension service providers to give technical support to the farmers. The officers do the distribution of inputs to the farmers on parish levels.
The agricultural promotion program Operation Wealth Creation is having its branches extended to Higher Institutions of learning. This is through actively supporting agricultural courses in a number of universities in the country.

 Action plan:

• To bring witness to handle the issue of thieves in the area and we take the culprits to court
• Citizens should co-operate with police to share information about thieves to keep peace in this area  who steal
• Radio talkshows to be held to educate people about OWC
• More monitoring of  beneficiaries of  OWC products
• Citizens to report to officials like sub county chief whenever they receive poor quality seeds from the team of OWC
• Sensitize community members  about OWC how it works by the sub county officials

As ToroDev we thank all our partners SIDA, NED, SPIDER, ICT4DEM, CIPESA for the technical & financial support and also the advocacy forums we work with for the advocacy & monitoring work done in communities.