The Role Of Decentrausation In Community Empowerment For Poverty Alleviation: The Experience Of Endinzi Sub County, Isingiro District

ABSTRACT

This report documents the findings of a study on the role of decentralization in

community empowerment for poverty alleviation. Endinzi Sub County in Isingiro

district was taken as a case study.

The study’s main objective was to examine the role of government decentralization

in empowering communities for sustainable development.

The study adopted questionnaires and interviews as key research instruments.

These were administered on the key respondents who included local people and

local council leaders and civil servants. The key findings include the following;

The roles of decentralised governments especially at sub county level were

inadequately done in Endinzi local government.

Most services that mean a lot in local people’s lives such as roads, schools and

health centres were in place. A number of limitations were however noted including

substandard work, poor or lack of maintenance and the like.

Endinzi Sub County just like any other in the country cannot provide services

adequately due to low revenues created by a narrow revenue base. The situation

became worse with the abolition of graduated tax.

Local governments still face structural constraints that include corruption,

incompetence, unsupervised demotivated civil servants and political interference.

The following recommendations were made;

Endinzi sub-County should strengthen its planning process to ensure that

programmes that eradicate poverty are critically addressed.

Local people should be involved in decision making and determining their projects

that may bring them out of poverty. The sub county officials can do this.

The sub county needs to look for other sources of revenue other than relying on

remittances from the central government and district. This will help in funding more

development projects.

Regular auditing and other supervisory activities need to be enforced by district

authorities and central government to ensure that civil servants perform and are

accountable.

NGOs, the district and central government need to design and deliver capacity

building programs that are geared towards strengthening the capacity of local councillors to perform their functions.