Introduction

Gender and Local Economic Development (GLED) is a one-year post-graduate diploma course, offered by the School of Women and Gender Studies, Makerere University. It is a sub-component of the Local Economic Development (LED) model with the aim of strengthening Local Governments’ capacities for integrating gender and equity in LED initiatives. The course focuses on introducing and activating Local Government (LG) capacity to work with relevant stakeholders on developing integrated and gender-equitable LED promotion strategies that are grounded in the thorough understanding of the local economy to ensure the achievement of a coherent, sustainable and equitable development outcome.

The GLED course is in compliance with the guiding development principle of Uganda’s commitment to address gender inequalities and women’s empowerment in order to meet the requirements for the Vision 2040. It focuses on enhancing progress in the attainment of the national development goals as well as the support to especially SDG 1, 3, 4, 5 and 8. The Course is aimed at:

1. Providing a clear understanding of gender focused concepts and tools that can be applied to planning, implementation and monitoring of policies and programmes in central and local government institutions as well as private sector.
2. Enabling students to learn and apply gender analytical tools in Local Economic Development that supports strengthening of Local governance.
3. Enhancing the students analytical and practical skills in Gender mainstreaming in institutions, policies and programs
4. Enhancing capacity of development practitioners to learn and apply gender theory and analytical tools with-in their work, in skills training as well as in research that increases on availability of gender disaggregated data.

This report presents the findings of an assessment that was conducted to establish the long-term impact of the course and the relevance, effectiveness and sustainability of the interventions by the participating students in the respective local governments. Since the inception of GLED in 2010, the course has attracted a total of 106 participants, with more males (58.3%) than females (41.7%); and has recorded one of the highest completion rates (87%) in the entire university. The participants have mainly been from the Planning, Community Development and Production units of district local governments in 35 districts in Uganda. 

The GLED course at Makerere University was designed to deliver a balanced combination of gender issues as they relate to local economic development to impart skills and knowledge in Gender Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation; Gender Mainstreaming and generation of gender disaggregated information to facilitate gender-responsive programming for local economic development. Further, the course has a practicum component that exposes students to hands-on experience on how to integrate gender in projects and programmes for local economic and sustainable development.

Relevance of the GLED course

Following a programme assessment, GLED participants testified having attained skills and knowledge to conduct gender analysis, gender-sensitive planning, community mobilization, conducting gender-sensitive M&E and formulating gender-responsive management systems that enable effective utilization of resources at local level. The Alumni testified that the course had changed their analytical lens on development to be more gender-sensitive, promote the utilization of available resources for sustainable local economic development; good governance; and make people gender-sensitive for the good of everyone. In most instances, GLED was synonymous with the community development functions because of its focus on the social and economic development of local communities.  Accordingly, more than half of the Alumni (males and females) reported that the GLED course offered them a unique experience to local economic development that spoke to their work and offered them a deeper understanding of gender relations and how they relate to locality development. The course is an important aspect of capacity building to enhance the implementation of the LED strategy. Local government staff were sent for training because of the desire to have skilled officials to guide the districts in integrating the gender aspects into LED programmes.  GLED is interpreted as a means to building a cadre of enthusiastic professionals who are able to envision a new development reality for, especially, the poor people. Further, the course was noted to be highly relevant in the operations of local governance to especially address the gender concerns in current household production systems and dynamics. 

At an individual level, the course was hailed for improving the participants’ career paths upwards – with about 45.7% of the interviewed alumni having been promoted to senior positions at their workplace – from Community Development Officer to Senior (5) and District (3) Community Development officers; while some were promoted from acting positions to Senior Assistant Secretaries, and others were given more responsibilities. A number have been transferred to new departments. While GLED led to promotion, it was also noted to have potentially brought new opportunities, with some of the Alumni transferring to central government ministries while others found lucrative jobs in the private sector and outside the country.

Utilization of the skills and knowledge acquired

Application of the GLED theory at institutional and community level was particularly apparent. At district level, the Alumni were reportedly instrumental in facilitating the human resource functions, in particular provision of technical support to gender analysis and mainstreaming the District Development Plan (DDP). The course participants have served as gender technical persons at several levels including in the planning committees. This involved gender awareness creation among the district staff, influencing the processes of project formulation, and planning and budgeting to ensure the implementation of gender-sensitive LED initiatives. At the community level, GLED Alumni were associated with the creation of a foundation for steady improvement in livelihoods and gender relations among the poor and marginalized groups and communities. The work performed by the alumni as technical in-put through local government structures have offered great opportunity to local dwellers to turn their lives around for the better. The communities are reached through community mobilization and sensitization.

Course curriculum

Semester I:

Semester II: