The Influence of Community Participation on Sustainability of Livelihood Projects: a Case of the Third Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (Nusaf 3) Livelihood Investment Support (Lis) in Adjumani District, Uganda
Abstract
Sustainability in livelihoods (SL) is increasingly seen as one of the important strategies of
eradicating household poverty in economically, socially and environmentally responsive
manner. A qualitative study was conducted to assess how community participation in the
selection, targeting and design of livelihoods project influence sustainability using a case
study of the third Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF 3) Improved Household
Income Support Program. The data collected were analysed both descriptively and
inferentially using Chi-Square Tests. NUSAF was one of the recovery and development
programs initiated by the Government of Uganda with funding from the World Bank for
the people of Northern Uganda to support the return, re-integration and rehabilitation of
Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) from IDP camps following the end of the Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA) hostilities in Uganda by 2004. Northern Uganda is the poorest
region of Uganda and the study was aimed at contributing to sustainability of livelihoods
for poverty reduction in the region. The study was carried out on one of the 55 districts of
the region and using multi-staged probability sampling, questionnaire-based interviews
were used to collect qualitative and quantitative primary data from 77 individual members
of 45 village level Community Interest Groups (CIGs). The study covered the two types of
livelihood activities supported by NUSAF 3 in Adjumani District, that is, animal traction
for crop production and produce buying and selling. Results of the study suggested that
community participation in selection influences sustainability in livelihoods projects. The
study found two different rate of sustainability for the two sub-project types, where
community had limited participation in the selection of the sub-projects. Animal traction
sub-project emerged more sustainable than the produce buying and selling. Additionally,
community participation in targeting was found to be influential on sustainability and
targeting in NUSAF 3. However, it was found that community participation in project
design has no significant influence on sustainability of livelihoods. The conclusion of the
study was that NUSAF 3 was economically sustainable at 83%, while the study
recommends environmental sustainability not to be neglected in projects by implementing
the mitigation measures and evaluating existing livelihood activities like village savings
for potential contribution to environmental degradation, which is highly affecting
livelihoods through unreliable rainfall patterns and rising temperatures.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
- Faculty of Arts [657]
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