The Philanthropy Forum of Uganda is pleased to convene an in-person forum under the theme ‘‘Building Sustainable Community Development Programs’’. This event will be held on 14th March, 2024 at the Fairway Boutique Hotel, Plot 3 Kafu Road Nakasero, Kampala-Uganda. This event aims to bring together stakeholders in philanthropy to share best practices, and engage them in order to strengthen community Philanthropy in East Africa.
Weaving resilience in our communities enables stakeholders to identify interrelated yet highly localised resources across the region so that organisations can cross share knowledge and empower each other with the expertise and tools needed to build and sustain social change. These initiatives have for a long time been based in or led by donors. It is important to shift the narrative and give agency to local communities and equip them to take the lead in finding solutions to problems encountered in their context.
In order for the actors in Philanthropy to create robust solutions, they must understand the needs of the community that they are working in. This calls for a comprehensive assessment of the community’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Such an analysis should include exploring the community’s economic, social, environmental, and cultural resources and needs. This information is critical to the development of solutions that are tailored to the community’s specific needs as well as building on their strengths.
To build a stronger social fabric and advance sustainable solutions, communities should espouse a Collaborative approach which encompasses stakeholders in the development and implementation process. This will include community members, government, private sector, media, civil society organisations and others. The collaborative approach promotes transparency, accountability, and trust within sector players at the same time ensuring that programs are pertinent to the community’s needs. This then translates to a sense of ownership and commitment by communities.
To achieve this, stakeholders must also consider the Integration approach. This calls for the inclusion of economic, social, environmental, and cultural factors. Actors need to be creative in developing innovative solutions to multiple issues, such as poverty reduction, inclusivity of marginalised groups, education, access to healthcare, environmental conservation, and cultural preservation. An integrated approach ensures that the solutions are holistic and sustainable.
Building Sustainable community programs cannot be successful without Capacity building. Community members, government stakeholder, and private partners will need training to strengthen their knowledge and skills. It will lead to efficient and timely implementation of programs in the particular community they are serving in.
Another important aspect is how to Monitor and evaluate these initiatives and ensure sustainability and greater impact. Programs implemented by the partners or collaboratively with other stakeholders, need to be tracked and progress should be recorded in order to avoid derailing the plan. Initiatives could also be evaluated and assessed on the basis of economic, social, environmental, and cultural impact. This ensures timely mitigation of challenges faced in sustaining the program and also brings out possible opportunities that can be ventured into to make the program better and more sustainable or lead to diversification to other more sustainable initiatives.
This forum therefore aims to model how to preserve communities (social fabric), engage participatory collaborations, and further the ideals that we believe will help advance sustainable solutions in philanthropy. It will examine issues relating to community philanthropy, mutual responsibility and the broader social economy.
Objectives:
Community resilience initiatives should be owned by local people, and managed by them and for them, because they are better placed to understand their own issues. Communities should be engaged in developing a nuanced understanding of the three dimensions of sustainability: society, environment and economy, therefore we aim to:
To participate in this convening, please sign up HERE.
