Sustainable development in Mbale

This paper reports on a 3 day workshop that aims to define sustainable development as a set of principles, a strategy and an action plan for the people of Mbale, Uganda under the auspices of the Coalition Against Poverty (a North-South link that in 2008 was awarded 2 United Nations Gold Stars for its development work). The participants in the workshop are drawn from Ugandan society: government, professional, commercial and technical sectors in the region and include community representatives at regional, district and neighbourhood level. The chief obstacle to sustainable development is identified as poverty typified locally by “insufficient food, low yields, few productive assets, low incomes to meet health care and education needs, large families, lack of social support and poor health.” [Sustainable Development in Mbale: Issues, Challenges and Required Interventions, Nakayenze, 2007] This paper focuses on the real estate outcomes discussed at the workshop in the context of the Ugandan Draft Land Policy’s attempts to address dysfunctionality in property markets. It offers some thoughts on the question of whether customary forms of land tenure [that account for 80% of land in Uganda] can contribute toward the sustainable development goals or are an obstacle to that growth.