The government has identified four sectors for wealth and job creation which the Parish Development Model (PDM) will advance. PDM is a program meant to eradicate poverty through the execution of development activities at the parishes.
These sectors include; Commercial Agriculture, Industry, Services and Information, Communication technology (ICT).
President Museveni officially launched PDM at Kibuku Primary School, Kibuku district in Bukedi sub-region on February 26, 2022. The PDM is a grassroot economic model, targeting especially the 39% of the population which only produces food for survival.
The president said the implementation of these sectors is going to enable the country to achieve middle income status at a much faster pace, despite the Covid-19 pandemic that slowed down the economic growth.
He said that the Parish Chief is going to be the coordinator of all government efforts at each of the 10,594 parishes and will report to the sub-county Chief. Each parish, he added, will have a cooperative society through which government support will be channeled.
“I urge leaders at all levels to support the implementation of this intervention. What we are launching here is a strategy, which has got two packages of medicines i.e. to our people with both big and small pieces of land,” President Museveni emphasized.
PDM aims at helping people at the parish level to increase their household incomes and joining the money economy.
Speaking at the launch, President Museveni, who narrated the journey of the country’s transformation, said that under the leadership of NRM, a foundation for socio-economic transformation has been laid by securing the entire country, building roads, hospitals, schools, water sources, dams to generate electricity and other public services.
“During the recently concluded elections, we promised you that the 2021-2026 term is going to be a Kisanja for creating wealth, jobs and incomes for all Ugandans,” Museveni said.
In the 2021-2026 Manifesto, the President said, NRM promised to use the (PDM) as a strategy to reach homesteads that are still in subsistence economy to support them join the money economy.
“These guidelines, therefore, have been prepared to direct the implementation of this transformative intervention,” he said.
He appealed to all leaders- political, religious, cultural among others to join hands with the government to sensitize the communities and promote PDM.
“The efforts now should be sensitizing our people how and who to do what. Because we don’t want our people to do what won’t help them,” he said.
Museveni said that the main focus now is the transformation of the population from the culture of working for only the stomach to working for both the stomach and money.
He added: “We must do so with a calculation.”
He asked leaders at different levels to educate the people on the problem and danger of land fragmentation.
“This one is very dangerous. All political leaders, religious and cultural leaders should join this effort and tell our people to stop land fragmentation,” the President emphasized.
Through PDM, the President said the government will take services to the people in a more effective way and receive actionable feedback from them on wealth creation and government-provided services to quicken socio-economic transformation.
Prime Minister Robina Nabbanja revealed that in the last few weeks, her team has been traversing the whole Bukedi region pre-sensitizing the population on the PDM and household income.
She commended the President for promoting peace and stability in Uganda saying that Ugandans now go well about their businesses because of this peace.
“The road network has greatly improved. You can now travel from North to West, East and Central with tarmac roads all through.”
The only challenge, Nabbanja noted, is now poverty but added that with the PDM this is soon becoming history.
The Minister of Local Government, the line Ministry, Raphael Magyezi said that the PDM is a National Development Programme 111 implementation mechanism by both the state and non-state actors to achieve inclusive development in a coordinated and participatory manner.
“It is the commitment of the government, as contained in the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Manifesto 2021-2026, to address the question of creating wealth and jobs for the people,” Magyezi said.
Minister Magyezi revealed that they will start with giving out Shs 17million to each parish this financial year and added that the Shs 100 million is planned for in the next financial year (per parish).
The Chairperson LCV for Kibuku District who spoke on behalf of the seven districts of Bukedi, Nakeba Muhammed, said that the sub-region has a conviction that this programme will succeed and transform lives of the people of Bukedi in particular and Uganda in general.
“We have a conviction that this programme will transform our people. We thank the NRM government for the many programmes that aim at improving the social and economic welfare of the citizens,” Nakeba said.
Emmanuel Lumala Dombo, Director for Information and Publicity at NRM Secretariat said this is yet another endeavor geared to wealth creation and poverty eradication.
“The PDM, the latest intervention in the NRM government’s continuous quest to lift all Ugandans from the poverty complex, comes at the backdrop of the campaign promise to secure the future of Ugandans in the 2021 general elections,” he said.
He explained that the programme is structured to boost wealth creation opportunities and to turn every parish in the country into a model development unit.
“Under Uganda’s local government structures, a parish is the administrative unit below a sub-county and above a village cell. The intention here is to leave nobody behind, more specifically, uplifting the nearly 39% of households from subsistence economy to commercial production,” he said.
“The truth is that this is not the first programme tailored by the NRM government with the very purpose of poverty eradication, however, none of the previous empowerment programmes placed economic power in the hands of communities in real terms, geographically and financially.”
The PDM is a multi-sectoral strategy to create socio-economic transformation by moving 39% households out of subsistence economy into the money economy using the Parish as the epicenter for development.
It emphasizes the approach of ensuring increased production, processing and marketing, infrastructure and service delivery at grass roots.
The model is designed under seven pillars: Production, Storage, Processing and Marketing; Infrastructure and Economic Services; Financial Inclusion; Social Services; Mindset change; Parish-Based Management Information System and Governance and Administration.
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