With the local governments from 8 Ugandan regions, a number of representatives of Dutch municipalities, Minister of Local Government Raphael Magyezi and Dutch Ambassador Karin Boven, the SDLG Uganda program was launched on 13 and 14 October. The program focuses on sustainable developed within local governance in a fragile context. Within the SDLG Uganda program, some of the participating municipalities also face challenges around refugees and the other municipalities focus mainly on improving services through the collection and proper spending of local taxes. 

The purpose of the two-day meeting was to introduce the new SDLG Uganda program to key stakeholders and to jointly launch the program after the many preparations. The first day began with an introduction to the themes of fragility, migration management and taxes, followed by an example of exactly how that theme is reflected within one of the participating municipalities. However, the challenges within the municipalities are so great that cooperation with other parties is very important. Therefore, the afternoon continued with two interesting panel discussions in which especially the cooperation between different parties was the subject of discussion. The second day was dedicated to leadership, with a discussion through inspiring examples on the importance of strong leadership, mind set change and taking initiative within the given opportunities. The day concluded with the official launch of the program by the minister and ambassador.

Within the SDLG Uganda program, expertise is deployed that fits the demand of the participating municipalities. Sometimes these are colleagues from Uganda itself, or surrounding countries, but representatives of Dutch municipalities are also involved. For example, Mariënne van Dongen, council member from Veldhoven municipality was present and shared a story about personal leadership. "During the Launch of the SDLG Program on challenges in migration management, governance and tax revenue generation, all sorts of leadership themes came up that are also in play in the Netherlands, but are rarely discussed so thoroughly and openly. I am very impressed by the analysis of the local VNG International team and the willingness of all attendees to learn from each other."

These were two successful days and we as a program team are very much looking forward to the next steps. Would you like to know more about the program in Uganda or other countries within the SDLG program? Or are you as a Dutch municipality interested in making your knowledge available to the program, please click here.