President Yoweri Museveni, the leader of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party recently re-ignited the push for the country’s economy to move up the ranks from low income to higher-middle status by 2026.
To oil this strategy, the vision bearer of our country, launched the Parish Development Model (PDM) in February 2022 as the magic bullet that will drive Ugandans outside the money economy.
But what is this concept of the Parish Development Model? The Parish Development Model (PDM) is the last mile strategy for service delivery by Government of Uganda for improving incomes and welfare of all Ugandans at the household level.
The model positions the Parish as the epicenter of multi-sectoral community development, planning, implementation, supervision and accountability.
Through PDM, Government has now provided a sustainable lease of life to livelihoods for all these households, which comprise about 39% of the country’s population.
For example, within Manafwa District, where I serve as Deputy Resident District Commissioner, as of January 10, 2024, a total of 17, 256 people have already benefited from this timely and well-structured anti-poverty programme that President Yoweri Museveni brought.
Still, within Manafwa District, the PDM cash disbursement rate is at 99.59%.
Given the fact that over the years, the ruling party under the able leadership of President Museveni has laid a firm foundation for socio-economic transformation by security the entire country, building roads, hospitals, schools, water sources and dams to power electricity generation and attracting investors, the implementation of PDM has indeed oiled the road for President Museveni’s victory come 2026 general elections.
Like the ruling NRM Government promised citizens, the 2021- 2026 term has indeed been one for creating wealth, jobs and incomes for all Ugandans.
In our Manifesto of 2021-2026, the NRM promised to use the Parish Development Model (PDM) as the strategy to reach the homesteads that are still in subsistence economy to support them to join the money economy.
Through the Parish Development Model, 3.5 million households that are still in subsistence farming have been jumped-started into the money economy.
Earlier, using Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) and Emyooga, the number of households trapped into traditional farming practices had reduced the proportion of homesteads working for only the stomach from 68% in 2016 to 39%.
So, almost three years into the PDM implementation, parishes across the country have registered a number of household income successes, and this is a major leap-forward for the country, citizens, NRM and President Yoweri Museveni, who engineered this critical and timely programme.
Under the PDM programme, the NRM identified four sectors for jobs and wealth creation—commercial agriculture; industrialization; modern services and information and communications technology (ICT), and each of the 10,594 have already been triggered into motion.
Launched shortly after COVID 19 pandemic, PDM remains Uganda’s flagship programme that has already alleviated vast majority of the public from wide spread poverty and up lifted households into money economy.
People are now awake, and the wealth creation mobilisation and sensitisation has taken shape.
Over the years, a massive rural labour force has also been pushed into production, productivity, creativity, innovation and commercialization to catch up on lost time, efforts and opportunities.
This is so, because President Yoweri Museveni means well, and has all along meant well with every development initiative that targets the general population seeking to uplift them from social and economic doldrums into shared prosperity.
Built around village SACCOs, PDM has provided sufficient incentives for members and others in similar line of trade and production to cooperate beyond the seed money they borrow.
This has already paved the way for President Yoweri Museveni and the ruling NRM party ahead of the 2026 general elections.
And if obfuscation, in which people lie to survive or cook figures to divert cash meant for citizens, is curbed, then, the NRM party and Government has already staked its prestige with PDM as the new bullet for mass socio-economic transformation.
And like President Yoweri Museveni, always says, the future is very bright—and the NRM and President Museveni’s 2026 general election victory is already etched in electoral books.
The writer is the Deputy RDC, Manafwa District
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