Success of the African Highlands Initiative
The Scale of the Problem
In several sub-Saharan African countries, soil degradation – “the process by which soil declines in quality and is thus made less fit for a specific purpose such as crop production” – is a serious threat to crop yields (OECD 2001).What is the scale of soil degradation in Nnindye and throughout Uganda?
Decreasing soil fertility is one type of soil degradation I witnessed in Nnindye. A decline in soil fertility affects approximately 88% of the rural population in Uganda (3). While the area under cultivation in Uganda has doubled from 1970 to 2007, soil yields have largely stagnated or decreased. Particularly in the Mpigi district, where Nnindye is located, many farmers are switching from bananas to less-profitable root crops like cassava and sweet potatoes due to declining soil fertility (3). One of the farmers I interviewed, who was chopping down his matoke trees to plant watermelons, cited decreasing soil fertility as the reason he had to abandon matoke after 9 years of production: “Matoke is just too rough on the soil.”
Soil erosion is another problem in Uganda that can be caused by poor agricultural practices. The highlands areas in the Southwest, comprising the Kabale and Kisoro districts, are 85%-90% eroded. Degrading a natural asset like soil, which takes millions of years to form, has negative socioeconomic consequences, such as widespread food insecurity, increased food costs, and rural to urban migration (3). In Nindye, I saw some root causes of soil degradation that are also present elsewhere in Uganda.
Participatory Solution
One of the goals of the UPFORD partnership between Uganda Martyr's University and Notre Dame is to help farmers maintain soil fertility. Thus, proven community-based, participatory approaches provide interesting case studies. Encouragingly, participatory approaches to land conservation have found success in Uganda.
The African Highlands Initiative (AHI) is a program which focused on land degradation and agricultural productivity in the Ugandan Highlands. This program fostered collaborative relationships between researchers and villagers, leading to the creation of local by-laws that have dramatically reduced the levels of soil degradation in the area. Located in the southwestern corner of Uganda, the region is up to 90% affected by soil erosion (Sanginga et al. 2004). This participatory program fostered collaborative relationships between researchers and villagers to improve natural resource management (23).
Implementing the By-laws
The AHI grounded its approach in the tradition of action research, a process that pursues policy change and research through participatory natural resource management, or learning by doing.
The program began with a long-term, community-visioning process that helped community members articulate their goals for maintaining their natural resource ecosystems. The four involved communities developed action plans with clear objectives and responsibilities for different community stakeholders. Then, researchers met with community representatives to examine problems with existing natural resource management byelaws. It was jointly concluded that some bye-laws were not being enforced, while others were impossible to follow without jeopardizing the livelihoods of some villagers (23).
One of the challenges of every participatory program is defining the relationship between researchers and the community. To make this dialogue as effective as possible, the AHI initiated a series of “policy-stakeholder workshops” to identify areas for collaboration and information sharing between researchers and community members. In these workshops, researchers used “policy narratives” to convey information about issues such as soil fertility loss to gain public support for efforts like tree planting:. In participatory projects, researchers have to tread a fine line between dictating the goals of the project and providing information necessary for community-action (23).
Working at Multiple Levels
To implement policy changes, program researchers supported the integration of participatory principles into three levels of governance: the community-level, the sub-county level, and the district level. Community-inclusive meetings brought together villagers to identify multiple local perspectives for village officials to consider drafting by-laws. These consultative meetings had the aim of gaining the support of different categories of farmers, who were more likely to abide by bye-laws after seeing their perspectives linked to higher levels of policy design. Sub-county level meetings between local village councils smoothed disagreements between local-level by-laws before they were actually signed into law. The village councils participating at this level were formed by democratic processes, and were responsible for drafting the final by-laws and enforcing their implementation. Finally, high-profile district-level dialogues involved a higher level of government, focusing policy discussions at lower levels while building a coalition of local activists to stimulate public discourse (23).
The by-laws were a result of activity at these three levels. Examples are “Anybody in the village who cuts a tree should at least plant two and make sure that the existing ones are well protected,” and “Areas that do not accommodate trenches or where trenches cannot be accommodated, elephant grass and legume grasses to act as stabilisers should be planted” (23). Program impact evaluations have indicated that these by-laws have improved agricultural production while maintaining natural resources.
Lessons from AHI for participatory programs
In several sub-Saharan African countries, soil degradation – “the process by which soil declines in quality and is thus made less fit for a specific purpose such as crop production” – is a serious threat to crop yields (OECD 2001).What is the scale of soil degradation in Nnindye and throughout Uganda?
Decreasing soil fertility is one type of soil degradation I witnessed in Nnindye. A decline in soil fertility affects approximately 88% of the rural population in Uganda (3). While the area under cultivation in Uganda has doubled from 1970 to 2007, soil yields have largely stagnated or decreased. Particularly in the Mpigi district, where Nnindye is located, many farmers are switching from bananas to less-profitable root crops like cassava and sweet potatoes due to declining soil fertility (3). One of the farmers I interviewed, who was chopping down his matoke trees to plant watermelons, cited decreasing soil fertility as the reason he had to abandon matoke after 9 years of production: “Matoke is just too rough on the soil.”
Soil erosion is another problem in Uganda that can be caused by poor agricultural practices. The highlands areas in the Southwest, comprising the Kabale and Kisoro districts, are 85%-90% eroded. Degrading a natural asset like soil, which takes millions of years to form, has negative socioeconomic consequences, such as widespread food insecurity, increased food costs, and rural to urban migration (3). In Nindye, I saw some root causes of soil degradation that are also present elsewhere in Uganda.
Participatory Solution
One of the goals of the UPFORD partnership between Uganda Martyr's University and Notre Dame is to help farmers maintain soil fertility. Thus, proven community-based, participatory approaches provide interesting case studies. Encouragingly, participatory approaches to land conservation have found success in Uganda.
The African Highlands Initiative (AHI) is a program which focused on land degradation and agricultural productivity in the Ugandan Highlands. This program fostered collaborative relationships between researchers and villagers, leading to the creation of local by-laws that have dramatically reduced the levels of soil degradation in the area. Located in the southwestern corner of Uganda, the region is up to 90% affected by soil erosion (Sanginga et al. 2004). This participatory program fostered collaborative relationships between researchers and villagers to improve natural resource management (23).
Implementing the By-laws
The AHI grounded its approach in the tradition of action research, a process that pursues policy change and research through participatory natural resource management, or learning by doing.
The program began with a long-term, community-visioning process that helped community members articulate their goals for maintaining their natural resource ecosystems. The four involved communities developed action plans with clear objectives and responsibilities for different community stakeholders. Then, researchers met with community representatives to examine problems with existing natural resource management byelaws. It was jointly concluded that some bye-laws were not being enforced, while others were impossible to follow without jeopardizing the livelihoods of some villagers (23).
One of the challenges of every participatory program is defining the relationship between researchers and the community. To make this dialogue as effective as possible, the AHI initiated a series of “policy-stakeholder workshops” to identify areas for collaboration and information sharing between researchers and community members. In these workshops, researchers used “policy narratives” to convey information about issues such as soil fertility loss to gain public support for efforts like tree planting:. In participatory projects, researchers have to tread a fine line between dictating the goals of the project and providing information necessary for community-action (23).
Working at Multiple Levels
To implement policy changes, program researchers supported the integration of participatory principles into three levels of governance: the community-level, the sub-county level, and the district level. Community-inclusive meetings brought together villagers to identify multiple local perspectives for village officials to consider drafting by-laws. These consultative meetings had the aim of gaining the support of different categories of farmers, who were more likely to abide by bye-laws after seeing their perspectives linked to higher levels of policy design. Sub-county level meetings between local village councils smoothed disagreements between local-level by-laws before they were actually signed into law. The village councils participating at this level were formed by democratic processes, and were responsible for drafting the final by-laws and enforcing their implementation. Finally, high-profile district-level dialogues involved a higher level of government, focusing policy discussions at lower levels while building a coalition of local activists to stimulate public discourse (23).
The by-laws were a result of activity at these three levels. Examples are “Anybody in the village who cuts a tree should at least plant two and make sure that the existing ones are well protected,” and “Areas that do not accommodate trenches or where trenches cannot be accommodated, elephant grass and legume grasses to act as stabilisers should be planted” (23). Program impact evaluations have indicated that these by-laws have improved agricultural production while maintaining natural resources.
Lessons from AHI for participatory programs
- Because of Uganda's decentralized governance structure, there are ample opportunities for participatory programs to translate agricultural research into local policy through careful coordination between the ladders of local government.
- The success of a participatory program depends on an effective triangular relationship between local committees, the government, and development organizations. The most crucial is the local committees, which are both examples of and catalysts of social capital. These committees in the AHI facilitated exchange of scientific information within local communities and mobilized the collective action necessary to preserve natural resources. Development agencies should support the organizational capacities of local communties, which allows communities to link various local perspectives to eventual policies
- Oftentimes, local committees are unsure of what they can ask or expect from research-oriented development agencies. In AHI, it was critical that the R&D organization held participatory policy-learning events to help translate some important scientific knowledge to communities. However, it is in this step that agencies need to be careful not to overrun local concerns. It's a partnership.
- Role plays, mapping and diagramming, mentoring, and other adult learning methods were used to prepare farmers to articulate their concerns to local officials
- Many soil-conservation techniques require minimum inputs, such as seeds. Development agencies need to be able to provide these to communities interested in natural resource management.
- Participatory processes are SLOW. Researchers need to invest time to attend legislative events and to forge relationships with community leaders. This can build the critical “network of influence” needed to set action research in motion