By Oweyegha-Afunaduula
In Uganda, environmental conservation is done as a technical rather than an ecological and cultural undertaking. The unity of human communities and nature is continuously abused. The reason for this conservation attitude and practice is traceable to our colonially designed education system, which has for held decades taught generations of Ugandan learners that we are apart from, not part of the environment.
In other words, we have been tuned to take the environment as something only physical, which is there just for us to exploit to satisfy our needs and greed. Time has proved that this attitude towards the environment is the reason why we have done so poorly in the enterprise of environmental management and conservation, either as individuals or communities or government through time and space (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2024).
President Tibuhaburwa Museveni is the beginning of everything and end of everything in Uganda. He has personally initiated projects and then caused his Cabinet and the Parliament of Uganda, which is dominated by his National Resistance Movement (NRM) Caucus, to endorse them as government project and allocate money for their implementation.
This tends to cast the President as a visionary leader. A visionary leader is a one who essentially sets a path or paths for significant positive change within an organization or community or country. President Museveni gives the impression that he does this.However, no genuine cost-benefit analyses are performed on the presidential projects. Neither are environmental Impact Assessment (EIAs) performed to reject.
Where EIAs are performed, such as in the case of dams, the aim is to environmentally immunise them by simply stating in the EIA reports that “the project (s) will not significantly negatively affect the environment”.
Every time before Presidential, Parliamentary and Council elections, he traverses the country to monitor and establish the effectiveness of the projects towards improving the incomes and transforming the livelihoods of the beneficiaries of the projects. However, rarely is the environment, which is the theatre for the projects, factored in the equation of improvement and transformation for sustaining incomes and livelihoods well in the future.
Therefore, where improvements incomes and transformationof livelihoods have been recorded, the environment has depreciated in all its dimensions. The depreciated environment has ended up undermining sustainable incomes and livelihoods on a long-term basis. Consequently, the majority of Ugandans are continually trapped in the vicious circle of environmental decay and collapse, impoverishment, debts and underdevelopment.
This way, the projects manifest as if they are designed to submerge the absolute majority of Ugandans in a sea of environmental degradation, poverty, debts, underdevelopment and dependency at very high cost. A lot of money is invested in every project initiated by the President- and the cost is pushed up by the ever-present corruption, which characterises the projects.
The projects the President has personally initiated as public innovations include Bujagali dam, Bonna Bagaggawale, Myooga, Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) and Parish Development Model (PDM). Virtually all of them predate on the environment in the fashion of “Destroy and then Build”. In other words, the environment is first destroyed and then the developments are imposed on the changed environment in pursuit of what is desired.
In this article I want to explore “How the currently highly cherished Parish Development Model has destroyed, and continues to destroy the environment of Uganda”. I will look at how it has destroyed the ecological-biological dimension, socioeconomic dimension, sociocultural dimension and temporal or time dimension of the environment as well as their interactions to reduce the productivity and sustainability of the total environment of Uganda and its capacity to support life. Indeed, at the time of writing this article, climate change is reigning havoc in every corner of Uganda.
PDM is unique that it does not target whole communities but select individuals, often tied to the ruling party. The falsehood sustained and popularised is that when the individual beneficiaries experience growth in income, wealth and improvements in the livelihoods using money given to them as bonanzas, these will trickle down and permeate the whole communities they belong to.
This, however, has never happened since the project, cast as a programme, was launched by the President. Instead, PDM has ended up destroying the environment in all its dimensions and between them. Usually when some beneficiaries are appreciated for what they have done with the 1 million shillings given to them, they are not assessed on how they have wisely or unwisely managed the environment during the implantation of their projects to ensure environmental sustainability and integrity.
PDM in the Ecological-Biological Dimension
PDM operates mainly in the socio-economic dimension of the environment and predates on the ecological biological dimension of the environment, which is the theatre in which all projects are imposed, often at the exclusion of environmental guidance since the focus is just on increasing the incomes of the PDM beneficiaries.
Natural public resources being destroyed include soils,air, water, forests, swamps, wildlife, and humanity, which is the most critical resource in development, but are all being increasingly used and misused to wrong ends for power, money, glory, domination and control of indigenous communities for the livelihood benefit of a small, exogenous group of people.
This is the Tragedy of the Commons of Uganda. According to William Forster Lloyd (1833) the Tragedy of Commons refers to a situation, in which individuals with access to a public resource (also called a common) act in their own interest and, in so doing absolutely deplete the resource (or destroy).
The use and misuse of public resources to wrong ends is corruption, and that it is proliferating throughout the country, mainly politically, to benefit a small group of people at the expense of the rest of Ugandans (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2022).
Meaningful and effective environmental management and conservation is sensitive to the historical, biological and ecological, between the physicality of the environment and the human populations and/or communities are being eroded by PDM. Their diverse environmental histories, biologies, psychologies, ecologies, socialities, moralities, ethics and spiritualities must be factored into the environmental management and conservation environment for any success to be recorded.
However, PDM beneficiaries, individualistic as they are, have destroyed and continue to destroy the diverse environmental histories, biologies, psychologies, ecologies, socialities, moralities, ethics and spiritualities in the communities in which they operate in exclusion to those communities.
Accordingly, communities have gained nothing from PDM except losing in these aspects and their environments being reduced in sustainability and integrity. Currently in most communitieswhat members are boasting of in the ecological-biological dimension are species and human impoverishments, Besides, their traditional agroecological farming systems that were nature-loving and produced food for all are being replaced with alien extensive or intensive agribusiness systems that are nature insensitive, environmentally bankrupt and environmentally corrupt (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2023).
Failure to factor the environment in the PDM project or programme means that if the environment is stressed and strained like itis now when climate change is hitting the country had, many undertakings by the individual beneficiaries may collapse. Hopefully, the beneficiaries will not be punished for the failures caused by environmental failure.
PDM in the Socio-Cultural Dimension
The culture and sociality of traditionally settled communities have been shaped by the total environment.The destruction of the total environment has been emphasized as the main avenue for destroying the cultures and socialities of indigenous communities and converting them into disorganized congregations of beggars and slaves (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2024).
PDM is destroying families because of disagreements between men and women and even children over the use and misuse of the 1 million shillings given to the beneficiaries. Because PDM is an individualistic project or programme, it is a formidable weapon against the extended family system, which is so prevalent among the settled communities of Bantu and Luo.
This is stressing and destroying the social and cultural sustainability and integrity of clans and communities. Besides, the psychological, social, moral, ethical and spiritual unity of families, extended families, clans and communities is being undermined by PDM.
PDM in the Socio-Economic Dimension
I have pointed out that PDM is an essentially socioeconomic project or programme. It is aimed at improving the social and economic status of the beneficiaries of the 1 million shillings given to the individual beneficiaries by government. The greatest factor, competing with the environment in failing PDM is corruption, which is sweeping the project or programme from top to bottom. Besides, many individual beneficiaries are allocating the money given to them to causes that were not included when they were requesting for the funds. It is a fact that PDM has undermined the traditional socio-economic systems of the communities in which its beneficiaries find themselves. Corruption was never integral to the socioeconomic system. It is an import to the communities via PDM. Besides, there is no proper pricing system for the products of the PDM beneficiaries who mostly people who have never handled 1 million shillings in their lives. Therefore, rather than improving their incomes to escape poverty, many are suffering deeper impoverishment and worse livelihoods.
PDM and the Temporal (Time) Dimension
The temporal (or time) dimension of the environment is deteriorating due to the increasing abuse of time, the most critical resource available (24 hours) for the country’s development, transformation, and progress. Time is central to every process of development, transformation, and progress. If it is grossly abused, as it is in Uganda, then it becomes extremely difficult to experience meaningful and effective development, transformation, and progress (e. g., Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2023) at family level where PDM is concentrated in the rural areas. Many beneficiaries attach inappropriate time scales to their undertakings in a fast-changing environment. It is not far-fetched to state that those beneficiaries of PDM who launched their undertakings in December or January have lost them during the hot sun of January, February and early March. They were probably misled by the fact that during the same time in 2023/2024 there was rain.
Many PDM-supporting environments have ecologically broken down. The ecological principles of managing time, maintaining diversity and redundancy, managing connectivity, managing slow variables and feedbacks, fostering complex adaptive systems thinking, encouraging learning, broadening participation and promoting polycentric governance systems (Oweyegha-Afunaduula, 2023) have been thoroughly violated by the individualistic nature of PDM. Besides, ecological hierarchical systems, organisms as chemical systems, energy flow in ecosystems, chemical nutrient cycles in, population growth, species extinctions, chains and webs of interactions have been disrupted. There is also rising irresponsibility towards other species, interference with ecosystem services.
We are now unable to separate catastrophes due to natural causes from those due to unnatural causes. Unnatural causes arise from human interactions with nature. The majority of interactions are due to ecologically and environmentally empty Man’s craze to conquer Nature rather than live in harmony with it (Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2023).
Conclusion
PDM is likely to fail to deliver development, transformation and progress in the families of most beneficiaries of the facility just like similar projects or programmes executed through the medium of money bonanzas, unless it is rethought. The rethinking must putenvironmental management and conservation idea at its centre and made integral to it. Environmentally empty projects or programmes cannever prescribe success stories. That is why virtually all projects and programmes supported by the World Bank and the Uganda government have failed or emerged as white elephant projects/programmes in the past at extremely high cost to Ugandans. However, if PDM is not follow the failure of other projects initiated by the President that came before it, the following 10 Causes of project failure need to be taken seriously: Lack of Planning, kitchen sink syndrome, inconsistently defined resources, unrealistic deadlines, lack of transparency, lack of communication, unrealistic expectations, lack of (proper) monitoring, lack of risk monitoring and inadequate stakeholder management. Of course we must add corruption management, which continue to evade all government projects.
For God and My Country
Further Reading
Agencies (2022). OWEYEGHA-AFUNADUULA: The Use and Misuse of Public Funds to Wrong Ends in Uganda (PART TWO). Ultimate News, July 1 2022, https://ultimatenews.co.ug/2022/07/oweyegha-afunaduula-the-use-and-misuse-of-public-resources-to-wrong-ends-in-uganda-part-two/ Visited on 3 March 2025 at 8:20 am EAT.
Musoke, Ronald (2023). Why orld Bank Funding Freeze on Uganda is a Mistake. The Independent, August 14 2023. https://www.independent.co.ug/why-world-bank-funding-freeze-on-uganda-is-a-mistake/ Visited on 3 March 2025 at 15:19 pm EAT.
Olusola Owonikoko (2021). Why International Development Projects Fail in Africa and What we can do differently. WACSI, July 22 2021. https://wacsi.org/why-international-development-projects-fail-in-africa/ Visited on 3 March 2025 at 15: 15 pm EAT.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula, F.C. (2005). Who is to Blame for the Failed World Bank Projects. The Monitor, 7 January 2005. https://allafrica.com/stories/200501060757.html Visited on 3 March 2025 at 15:24 pm EAT.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2023). NRM Functionaries Undermine the Environment. Uganda Today, October, 14 2023, https://ugandatoday.co.ug/nrm-functionaries-undermine-environment/ Visited on 3 March 2025 at 8:30 am EAT.
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2023). Ecological Science Knowledge for Leaders and Policy Makers in the 21st Century. MUWADO, September 14 2023. https://muwado.com/ecological-science-knowledge-for-leaders-and-policy-makers-in-the-21st-century/?v=2a0617accf8b Visited on 3 March 2025 at 11:05 am EAT
Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2024). Effective Environmental management and conservation of Uganda’s diverse ecologies. November, 25 2024. https://dailyexpress.co.ug/2024/11/25/effective-environmental-management-and-conservation-of-ugandas-diverse-ecologies/ Visited on 3 March 2025 at 8: 45 am EAT.
Simplilearn (2024). 10 Major Causes of Project Failure. SIMPLILEARN, September 24 2o24, https://www.simplilearn.com/resources/project-management/free-practice-tests Visited on 3 March 2024 at 15:31 pm EAT.
