Golooba-Mutebi’s report on decentralization and popular participation in Uganda highlights the shortcomings of participatory development. He traces the development path followed within the primary health care sector and concludes that decentralization and popular participation have failed to correct the short comings thought to have been a result of the top-down political system previously in place. He does not support the top-down approach and acknowledges its shortcomings, but argues that decentralization fails to correct them.
Enthusiasts of participatory development stress empowerment and accountability. Golooba-Mutebi correctly argues that the transfer of power does not necessarily lead to empowerment, and that local level management does not lead to greater accountability. While decentralization and popular participation in Uganda’s primary health sector did yield improvements in infrastructure, it failed to address service delivery and accountability. This is where Golooba-Mutebi makes his greatest contribution. Following authors such as Hyden and Chaason, he argues that participatory development makes little significance in states that are weak. He does not argue, as do authors like Cooke, against the usage of participatory development. But rather states that efforts made using the participatory development model, within the framework of a weak state, are bound to be insignificant.
Golooba-Mutebi identifies two broad obstacles present in weak states that hinder participatory development efforts; limited access to resources and restricted information and knowledge. He argues that community health workers failed to provide adequate services as a result of not receiving their salaries on time. This lead to various fo...
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...ticipatory development continues to bring about seemingly positive results
Johnston argues that the understanding of community participation is taken for granted. She believes that participation may be defined according to the level of responsibility the participant is afforded. Ranging from powerless to being creatively in control she identifies several levels of participation. Johnston goes on to argue that the level of responsibility one acquires is directly related to the extent of their knowledge. The more informed and individual is, the greater the meaning a particular initiative will carry- the greater the meaning, the greater the (level of) participation. Through creative participation in the development process the individual becomes empowered. This ties in with Golooba-Mutebi’s argument that knowledge is key to the success of participatory development.
Works Cited: Ferguson, James. (1990) The Anti-politics Machine: ‘Development’, Depoliticisation, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Cambridge. University Press McMichael, Philip. The. (2000) “Development and social change: a global perspective.”
... it needs (four thousand instead of the needed twelve thousand) and nearly ten percent of the doctors (three hundred instead of the needed three thousand) for a population of over fourteen million. Malawi is the perfect example for a show of how destructive the Structural Adjustment Programs can be for a developing country and how much power it can give to the IFIs that they (an outer entity) can overrule the demands of a sovereign government and can thus have far greater influence over a country’s economy and development than the country’s government itself.
"Letter to the Editors Why Are Many People in Developing Countries Poor?" Poverty. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.
Access to health care in Ethiopia has left many people without proper health care and eventual death. Millions of people living in Ethiopia die because of the lack of access to the health care system; improving the access to the healthcare system in Ethiopia can prevent many of the deaths that occur, but doing so will pose a grueling and challenging task. According to Chaya (2012), poor health coverage is of particular concern in rural Ethiopia, where access to any type of modern health institution is limited at best (p. 1). If citizen of Ethiopia had more accessibility of the healthcare system more individuals could be taught how to practice safe health practices. In Ethiopia where HIV, and maternal and infant mortality rates are sky high, more education on the importance of using the healthcare system and makin...
African governments have given in to the whim’s of international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in social and health policies, and with this, has come a shift away from former emphasis on social justice and equitable market efficiency to public health services for all now being perceived as a major threat ...
Nearly 50,000 people, including 30,000 children, die each day due to poverty-related problems and preventable disease in underdeveloped Countries. That doesn’t include the other millions of people who are infected with AIDS and other incurable diseases. Especially those living in Sub-Saharan Africa (70%), or “the Third-World,” and while we fight to finish our homework, children in Africa fight to survive without food, or clean water. During the next few paragraphs I will give proof that poverty and disease are the two greatest challenges facing under developed countries.
The overriding challenge Uganda faces today is the curse of poverty. Poverty, ‘the lack of something”(“Poverty.”), something can be materials, knowledge, or anything one justifies as necessary to living. Associated with poverty is the question of what causes poverty and how to stop poverty? The poverty rate in Uganda has declined from the year 2002 from the year 2009, which shows the percent of residents living in poverty has decreasing. Yet, the year is 2014 and the poverty rate could have drastically changed over the course of five years. One could assume the poverty rate would continue to decrease, which would be astounding and beneficial, but does poverty ever decrease enough to an acceptable level or even nonexistence? Poverty is a complex issue that continues to puzzle people from all across the globe. Poverty could possible be a question that is never truly answered.
In most cases, shortage of money is not the sole problem. Rather, poverty is a mere term summarised by a sophisticated factors of corruption, lack of infrastructure, civil unrest, government failure, and many more. Especially, donated money are regularly spent to run campaigns, provide wages to staffs, and to run the charities, with a very few of the amount being invested directly to help the poor. This socio-political scepticism can be worse as some believe that charity is merely a band aid fix to the deeper underlying problem that is continuously causing the poverty, and it only becomes the basis for local communities to be dependent on
Over the past five years, Uganda’s education system has proved both effective and successful. Although in the process of further development, it has nonetheless served as a model for many developing African countries. The Ugandan government, with President Yoweri Museveni at its forefront, has determined primary education to be one of the major channels toward poverty eradication and as a vital resource for economic and social development. The Ugandan government has made a national commitment to eradicate illiteracy and educate its citizens through the 1997 initiative, Universal Primary Education (UPE). All levels of government, the private sector, grass-root organizations, local and international non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), community and church leaders, international aid agencies, and international governments have been major players in Uganda’s universal primary education policy and continue to structure the policy in ways to benefit Ugandans, while simultaneously protecting their own interests. Unfortunately with such an enormous national commitment and the underlying interests of the many contributors, there were many shortages in the realistic policy as experienced by Ugandans. I argue that these shortages, which ultimately affect the quality of primary education, can be linked to inadequacies in the deliberations, monitoring, evaluation, and feedback of Ugandan education policy; once these areas are reformed, a more comprehensive education system can be re-established.
Smith, R.K. (1996). Understanding third world politics: theories of political change and development. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Charlick, R. (2000) "Popular participation and Local Government Reforms" Africa Notes, New York: Cornell University, (April) pp1-5
...esponsible for the development of general health policies and for monitoring and evaluating health facilities. The responsibilities of building facilities, providing medicines and paying salaries, however, they are all left to the local governments” (Guthrie Gray). The state government of the Niger delta neglects their responsibilities to provide social amenities for their people; instead they say it is the local government’s responsible in providing basic social amenities for the mass. The reason for this is to enable them embezzles social funds, in order to avoid any trace or records of their misuse of public funds. As a result, public officer don’t know their duties causing misunderstanding between the local government and the state government. The corruption in Niger delta is politically destabilizing, as it leads to conflict in government and electoral crisis.
McMichael, Philip, ed 2012. Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, 5th ed. London: Sage Publications, Inc.
Frequently however, issues arise amongst a community that need attention. In this essay I will outline and discuss some of these issues and the interventions, projects or programmes designed and used to tackle and combat them. The three models of intervention or, ‘Community Development’, I will discuss in this essay, "Social Planning", "Community Development", and "Social/Community Action", all have the same aim regardless of how it is accomplished and this is to improve and maintain the conditions which affect the lives of the community.
Poverty, empty stomached or hungry person right to vote holds no meaning unless he/she gets what to eat. In other words, poverty is regarded as a bane to democracy. It is one of the root cause of inequalities and deprivation of citizens in Uganda. It’s perceived as a state of denial of opportunities to live fulfilling and health life. Politicians use poverty to bribe poor electorates with salt and a bar of soap in exchange for a vote. Electorates don’t think of voting the one with a better policy focus but rather the one who would give them what to eat.