Description

Since 2006, World Vision Uganda (WVU) has used Citizen Voice and Action (CVA) as a primary vehicle for the mobilization of communities in ADPs. With 22 Area Development Programmes (ADP) currently using the CVA approach, our Ugandan staff are among the most experienced CVA practitioners.

As part of a recent evaluation, WVU interviewed 323 CVA participants in Arapai, Kamudda, Ntwentwe and Kimu ADPs. Respondents included service providers, civil servants, elected officials, Community Based Organization (CBO) representatives, and community members.

The changes that respondents reported at the facilities in the ADPs were remarkable. For example, at just one primary school (in Gogonya village), attendance increased from 157 to 271. Another critical issue was teacher absenteeism. Before the CVA process, parents and students reported that teachers actually instructed students for just three hours per day. After the process, absenteeism was virtually eliminated. New, clean, gender-separated lavatories for the students were also built, replacing the filthy facilities that children had previously used. CVA participants reported similar changes at primary schools across the ADPs.

With the data from CVA Community Gatherings, WVU staff worked with 20 district-wide CBOs, dozens of citizens and school management committees to identify patterns that might best be addressed at higher levels of government.

One of the most important patterns that they identified was the terrible truancy that plagued Ugandan schools. They discovered that truancy was directly linked to the lack of a midday meal during school hours. Many students lived far from the school, and could not go home for lunch. As communities dug deeper, they discovered that there were policies that undergirded the current system: The Education Act in Uganda had been reformed to support Universal Primary Education and abolished all school fees, and strictly prohibited schools to collect fees to pay for anything, including meals. But the education system could not possibly pay for meals for students. So what had been a well-intentioned policy to increase school attendance had in fact had the opposite effect. In essence, empty stomachs were leading to empty schools.

At district and provincial dialogue meetings, communities and governments began to find ways to allow parents to organize outside the school structure to provide simple porridge to school children. But this method eventually was highly cumbersome, and failed to capitalize on many of the assets that the school structure provided, such as staff and purchasing power.

With CVA facilitation by World Vision, the issue was brought to sub-county dialogue meetings, district dialogues meetings, and eventually to national level fora. None of these spaces for community-government dialogue existed before the CVA intervention. World Vision and CBOs eventually persuaded the district to pass new ordinances to allow a school lunch programme. But because the problem was systemic, World Vision worked with CBOs and the national-level Forum for Education NGOs in Uganda (“FENU”) to reform the national-level Education Act of 2008. Today, that Act explicitly provides that schools may collect fees for the purpose of organizing a midday meal programme. Districts now encourage the practice.

In addition, when data from the CVA process at the local level was analysed, it became clear that no one – not parents, not students, not school management – understood the roles and responsibilities of the various education system stakeholders. WVU worked with CBO members and the national government to issue a reprint of the specified entitlements, roles, and responsibilities related to education. The materials were widely distributed, and have received an abundance of attention at the local level. According to members, School Management Committees became much more aware of the structure of the education system in Uganda. And because of this clarity, community members report that school operation has become much more efficient.

But the changes in Uganda are just beginning. Using the sub-county and district dialogues that World Vision has already begun to facilitate, communities are planning new initiatives to further improve the functions of schools and clinics across the country.

But one thing is clear: the data that emerges from CVA empowers advocates with credibility and legitimacy to confront the injustices that perpetuate poverty in the communities they serve. Children receive better health care and better education in clinics and schools around the world as a result of the CVA process. As CVA grows, and as communities identify patterns of government failure, we move ever closer to uniting the grassroots connectivity and global reach that define World Vision’s unique contribute to advocacy and human rights.