Governance, planning, engagement and learning the virtue of patience

As the course comes to the end; i am thinking more about the course title. Community Engagement, Planning and Governance. In the process of developing this project Governance played a major role in considering the involvement of the community in fighting corruption. I believe that good governance is initiated by the people because it is through them that leaders are elected. One of the participants on this blog made it clear that the people need to take responsibility for their actions by electing the right leaders to office who will be instrumental in protecting their rights and resources. It may be said that when the election is finished then there is nothing left to do, and no way to change the situation should the leaders turn bad. However, most constitutions and laws including Uganda's provides for the recall of leaders who the people feel are not perfoming as is expected. The purpose of this project is to build knowledge about the importance of the community in the fight aganist corruption; as well as to develop ways to educate the community about their role in ensuring good governance.

In endevouring to build knowledge on community involvement in governance there is a need to engage; and engage i did. It is important in planning for action to build a body of participants through different ways, and with that this blog was born. In addition to the blog i created a facebook group called CORRUPTION LETS FIGHT IT which i would encourage you to visit and drop me a line. In trying to engage with the community out there for the purpose of achieving the goal of this project i found that enagement takes a long time and may or may not occur as we would like or as we plan. In the initial stages there was a positive response to the idea; however, there was very little action. I was disappointed because i expected response and action to be immediate; boy was i wrong. What was interesting is that almost at the end of the project there was a great big huge response and thats when i realised that to initiate and implement action, especially community based action, there is a need for patience. And patience is a virtue i had to learn.

I am thankful to all those who have been involved in this project in various capacities. I am appreciate your advice, your words of wisdom and your encouragement through this journey. I would like to invite you to continue to take part in this blog, for us to take our country forward. Please read our friends responses on the news letter and i look forward to hearing from you.