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.