Kabale is ready!!

By Hellen Nyamweru:The Kabale slum dwellers federation will soon start the enumeration and mapping exercise in line with the Cities Alliance and World Bank program (TSUPU)- Transforming Settlements of the Urban Poor in Uganda.TSUPU is a partnership undertaken by the Government of Uganda and its support partners to align urban development efforts at the national,local government and community level. According to the many interactions between the Kabale municipality,its local council leaders,focal persons and academia this activity is very much welcome in this town for planning purposes so as to  prevent problems associated with unplanned cities such as urban decay.These exercises will be very useful in collecting relevant information on Kabale city.It will also carve out the available services in the area and thus be very instrumental in identifying what lacks as a service.The information will in this way help open doors  to many forums and provide a platform where the residents of Kabale will demand  essential services lacking in their area.The development of Kabale will in the long run create  regional hubs which  are envisaged to help ease the pressure on Kampala,the capital city of Uganda by supporting it in from many angles.

Kabale city is the youngest towns under the TSUPU program located in the southwestern part of Uganda,bordering Rwanda through the Katuna border.It also has another road continuing westwards to Kisoro where one can either  access the Democratic Republic of Congo or the Rwandan town of Ruhengeri.That said,Kabale has the potential to grow into a large border town if it well planned.At the moment,Kabale is not ready to accommodate future imminent population.

According to the population census 2002,Kabale had 41,344 people which means that the projected population should be much higher owing to the high fertility rate of 6.5 children per woman in Kabale.Kabale is growing at a very fast pace  but the growth is not planned.It is haphazard meaning that several businesses,structures,hotels keep coming up everyday without a clear plan.Anecdotal evidence suggest that  there is no development plan for Kabale city at the moment and this is very worrying.The population grows every day and planning for this will take the concerted efforts of all residents of Kabale.The informal sector in Kabale is large and has a lot of potential that needs to be tapped.Human capital makes up 85% of any development venture and therefore the commitment of Kabale residents in these activities on mapping and enumerations is a plus.The community demonstrated a lot of the positive energy and are looking forward to the the commencement of these activities.

The Kabale federation is also rife,it is conducting daily mobilization exercises to create awareness of what these activities entail in order to arrest any resistance or snag on the ground.The area's authorities have also been informed  through a number of interactive meetings .The most interesting thing about Kabale is that it is a young town which has embraced the aforementioned activities and seen them as an opportunity to crafting their own development.In the past,slum dwellers have been left out of urban programs because they are ill-informed ;"Ignorance denies access".However this program is inclusive and has given them a voice and a pen to be authors of their own development.
Kabale might not have clear-cut slums but has many informal settlements mushrooming at an alarming rate.This is what needs to be addressed.Planning resources and strategies are needed to address problems of slum development.The enumeration and mapping activities will help inform any future development plans.Lessons from Kabale city can also be replicated in other young towns of Uganda with the aim of steering them towards urbanization,a reality that we cannot escape from.The time to do this is now!!!

Mapping and enumerations preperations;the case of Mbale

By Hellen Nyamweru: In Mbale,land has always been a contentious issue  just like the rest of Uganda.Recent past has seen several land wrangles in which the poor are always disadvantaged,they lose the battle and end up being pushed away from an area they used to call home,they become destitute.This is even made worse by the fact that peoples' knowledge on their rights and responsibilities when it comes to land is very minimal.Since the enactment of the lands act ( 1998) little sensitization has been done to ensure people fully understand issues concerning land.This therefore intensifies ignorance and the difference between the" Haves and the Have nots". because the poor are always exploited.

In the month of November.2010,residents in Namataala awoke to find  authorities who had camped in the area ready to evict the residents of the settlement with claims that the land had been sold to an investor.What followed was a revelation of accounts that had led to the act.The ownership of land in Namataala is under the customary land tenure.Over 70%  of land in Uganda is held on customary tenure system.In such cases,people own their land,have their rights to it but have no land tittles.The land is communally owned and controlled by elders or clan heads.Some tenants on such land allocate specific areas to themselves with known boundaries like ridges,trees,trenches.A certain resident of Namataala had approached the Mbale municipality for a lease offer which he was granted.The land already had occupants but the residents proceeded to Entebbe land offices where he 'apparently' acquired a land title.He then sold the land to a  third party after a couple of months which made the buyer the rightful owner of the land.This is how the near eviction of over 50 households in the area came to be.

Fortunately,the Local Council II General secretary of  Namataala parish,Mr.Maai Patrick is an active member of the Mbale slum dwellers federation.He rushed restore calm in the area and together with other slum dwellers approached the Mbale municipality for clarification on this issue.After several meetings and interventions,the eviction was stopped.

The above account and other similar stories came up during the recent sensitization on the upcoming enumeration and mapping exercises set to start soon in Mbale.The ground work has already been done,meetings with  municipality authorities,area leaders such as in the parishes and zones.The community is also very ready to undertake this activity and the federation is continuously conducting mobilization at the grassroots.

It is imperative to note that appreciation of this exercise; community enumeration and mapping is a major ingredient of the whole process.The community will own the information which they are about to undertake and in the same way use it to negotiate for better services in their areas.The information will also be useful for the municipalities to plan for its own, -'if you do not understand an area,then you cannot plan for it".We already have slums in our settlements,demolition of these slums will not help,its moving a problem from one area to another .In any case gentrification of areas may simply occasion recrudescence of slum conditions in other areas of the city.The only solution to the problem is proper planning which we can only achieve through the enumeration and mapping activities.Many preparatory meetings have been held to try and deal with the mind slate of the community;to make them realize  that they should be actively involved in their own development .The community is ready to undertake this historic exercise that is going to drive and transform Mbale to a city.

Enumeration kicks off!

By Hellen Nyamweru:The Uganda Slum Dwellers Federation and their support NGO ACTogether Uganda  took a two-day break from field activities to evaluate and dissect their performance in the test enumeration  exercise of   Kisenyi III zone.They had many questions to tussle concerning the exercise ranging from the manpower to use,the different teams to do the numbering and enumerations in the larger part of Kampala,the resources required among other issues.This will help arrest any eventualities and ensure that they remain on course once they start the actual enumeration and spread out to other cities of Uganda.The past few days from the 7/3/2011-9/3/2011 were used for training and preparing enumeration and mapping teams from the six regions i.e Kabale,Arua,Mbarara,Mbale ,Jinja , Kampala Central and Kawempe.The training translated into a practical mock enumeration and mapping exercise in Kisenyi III.This exercise revealed many issues that needed to be addressed before the actual enumeration and mapping kicks off in Kampala and in the other five cities of Uganda.
The actual enumeration  exercise will commence on the 16th of March.2011.The ground work has already been done with official  letters and other notifications being sent to various municipalities in the five cities.The federation is continuously sensitizing and mobilizing communities in preparation for the same.The information collected in this exercise will provide a platform for the slum communities to negotiate workable solutions with the state on the many social services lacking in the slums.

Kampala enumeration begins!

By Hellen Nyamweru: Yesterday, on the 8th of March 2011, the federation was putting its final touches to the their preparation for the upcoming enumerations. It is one of 6 city wide enumerations that the federation is going to undertake - the largest count in the country's history. 


Spirits were high as federation members from all over Uganda were present for the training. There were enumeration and profiling teams from Arua, Kable, Jinja, Mable and Mbarara.

The Ugandan teams were being supported by a SDI delegation of Kenyans, who have an extensive background in large scale enumerations, even though that is nothing compared to the size of this enumeration.


However, it was useful to have the Kenyan insight as they continued to guide the Ugandans through the process. The training focused on the enumerations, and went through the technicalities of numbering shacks along with the mapping. These exchanges are another tool from the SDI rituals, where federations learn from each others experiences . 


These trained groups will be central to teaching and supporting the federations in their respective cities. By doing this, we are able to ensure that it is the communities running the process and identifying their own priorities.


Kampala is a special case. It is the Capital city and home to very large and extensive slums, which are comprised of congested structures with no organised roads. It is a dynamic place with all manner of people, tribes, religious beliefs. This means that the federation needs to actively make sure that the communities within the slums are sensitized to the enumeration process. They need to explain to the communities what an enumeration is, why they are doing it and how it will be useful, and finally, they need to secure the community's participation in the enumeration itself.

Counting the most marginalised

Whilst the level of urbanization in Uganda is still relatively low - according to a report published in 2002 by the World Bank, only around 12% living in urban settings - all the indicators suggest that this will grow rapidly, reaching 30% in 2035. In recent years, Uganda's urbanization rate has increased significantly as rural poverty and conflict in the northern part of the country have driven people to the cities (http://www.citiesalliance.org/ca/uganda-community-participation).

This means that in order to deal with the approaching influx of city residents, the cities of Uganda need to reassess their current policies towards the urban poor as they will make up the largest percentage of the new city residents.

These cities, in conjunction with Cities Alliance, have entered into an agreement with the Federation and their support NGO to work on the 'Transforming the Settlements of the Urban Poor in Uganda (TSUPU)'.

The federation will be enumerating in 6 cities; Mbale, Arua, Mbarara, Kabale, Jinja and Kampala. By establishing federations at the local level, communities area able to organize around activities such as savings groups, enumerations and mapping, which gives them a platform for collective action.

These activities will also help communities to obtain the knowledge and information that they need to engage with the local and national governments on municipal development strategies and slum upgrading plans. This will have wide ranging implications as, for example, over 60% of Kampala's residents live in informal settlements.

The information that the federations gather will help the communities identify development priorities and advocate for better services, tenure and housing. This data can, for example, be used by community groups to present to City Councils, Local Councils or Central Government to campaign for various issues.

The participatory process helps uncover the specific issues that communities face that are particular to each area. This is important to note, as one cannot assume that each slum area will be the same as the next.

A key aim of this project is to create a sense of ownership and inclusiveness of the enumeration process, and for the communities to use this information in their discussions with government.

By doing this process, the voices of the most marginalized are given a space to address their development needs in a manner in which they have never been able to before.

Who we are

This blog will proved regular updates from the Ugandan Slum Dwellers Federation and their support NGO ACTogether as they undertake the largest slum dweller enumeration in Uganda's history.

Firstly, a bit of back ground...

The Ugandan Slum Dwellers Federation is the national urban poor federation of Uganda, which was established in 2002. The Federation is a member of the Slum Dwellers International (SDI) network and currently boasts 38, 000 members in six urban centres across the country.

All federations in the SDI network are collectives of slum dwellers whose main activity is the operation of savings and credit schemes. Leaders walk door-to-door gathering small change from neighbors, and conducting daily community needs assessments (asking each other how they are doing).

This process is designed to maximize the contact that people have with each other, enabling strong bonds to form around their shared identity as poor people. When people interact with each other every day - whether it be over savings & loans or the threat of eviction - their sense of being a community intensifies.

As members say, "Daily savings is a ritual that is not just about collecting money, it is about collecting people, collection information about their lives and learning how best to support them."

ACTogether are the support NGO for the Ugandan federation and was founded in 2006.

ACTogther prides itself on supporting the federation, so that when projects such as this large scale enumeration come along, the urban poor are able to enter into negotiations as an empowered and organized entity.

When communities change from recipients of aid to participants of aid projects, the result is win-win for everyone. As a result of the active participation of the slum dwellers, the policies become more pro poor, which in turn means the process will become more inclusive of the most marginalized members of society.