Rethinking Sustainability- Alternative Development Financing Models for Development Work

KAMPALA, August 7, 2025 — The Uganda National NGO Forum [UNNGOF], in partnership with CivSource Africa, hosted the Annual Philanthropy Symposium under the theme: Celebrating and Reclaiming Giving: Centering Local Philanthropy in Uganda. This two-day convening took place at Mitel Hotel in Kampala from August 5-6, 2025, attracting hundreds of participants engaged in community development work.

Leonard Okello, the Chief Executive Officer of The Uhuru Institute for Social Development [TUI], a social business enterprise, was one of Ugandans invited to speak at the symposium where he delivered a speech based on the topic above. Below, theCooperator News publishes his speech that touched on how different organisations in Uganda and Africa in general can mobilise resources to fund their activities as opposed to relying on development aid:

Dear business, culture, religion, non-governmental organisations, government officials and givers here gathered. It is exciting to witness this meeting take place especially to ask the difficult questions and table challenging new options for action on financing our work in ways that sustainably impact the development of our peoples. Remember, this meeting is also a time when drastic change is taking place in the why, what and how of development is financing globally.

In 2009 I returned to this country, soon met the then Executive Director of UNNGOF and discussed with him the likelihood that development financing would soon change and the big donor money we had then would soon slow down, requiring that we start thinking of alternative ways of financing our work. At the time the idea sounded far-fetched, but thanks to recent trump-card type changes in the international development finance we are here today.

Africa has no options but to fast think outside the box on new alternative ways of financing our development. When we got independence, on 9^th October 1962, we had no project money, no big foreign aid, and no large corporations offering CSR, to finance our development, but this is when we moved very fast to empowering our peoples home grown development. This “giving movement” we are talking about today is actually our African Ubuntu way of life starting with the extended family though which no child went to an orphanage but grew up supported by relatives and neighbours, we did not have Old Peoples’ Homes, but their grandchildren covered Elders needs until burial.

In this country our first decade of post-independence development financing [1962-1970], was a loan that in 8 years built 22 hospitals, primary and secondary schools, opened new roads, and expanded our agricultural exports without very large foreign donations. This was soon followed by short term development projects from the 1980s onwards, often implemented in sector silos, not talking to each other and as soon as the project money tap closed everything stopped even if the buildings were incomplete and the staff move on to new project jobs, with all institutional memories- the projectisation of development!

Below are our suggestions for your consideration and some of you are already doing:

Establishing social businesses, these are triple bottom business entities that seeks to effectively earn business revenue, create social impact, and contribute to environmental sustainability.

Businesses do development every day, because successful businesses, a set up to meet the needs or provide solutions to problems affecting people/clients, they only get out of business when another products or service has better value proposition e.g., better quality, more user-friendly, at lower costs etc. That is why the designer of the plastic Jerrycan is still in business today, but the “Tadoba”- paraffin lamp has been overtaken by the solar panel, and social media is taking legacy media out of business. We should not be scared of going business because those in it are not from another planet, in fact most business people do not carry the many university degrees like most of the people in the room have in their heads.

In the meeting with the UNNGOF Director in 2009, I proposed that we set up an NGO staff/members cooperative that would be capitalised through our own savings. That is how Nafasi Multi-purpose Cooperative Ltd was born as an NGO workers cooperative. I think this is still very relevant and we would all benefit a lot from it. We, must expand our Nafasi Cooperative, by joining, buying shares, saving, and taking loans, patronise its other businesses and patronise all its activities.

Think about it for a minute: that if each of the 14k NGOs each had 10 staff equals 140,000 people; and if each saved Shs 100,000/= we would be saving Shs 14,000,000,000/=[Shs 14 billion] monthly; in one year (12months) we would Shs 168,000,000,000/=; for 10 years we would be having Shs 1,680,000,000,000/=. This would have been employing all of us after COVID19 pandemic lockdown.

Cooperatives, are social businesses that are driven by a unique identity namely, traditional values of – self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity; ethical values namely – honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others;  and seven principles: – open and voluntary membership; democratic member control, member economic participation, information education and training, autonomy and independence, cooperation amongst cooperatives, and concern for community, all these are add values to members.

Cooperatives, by their very nature are already ESG complaint, that we hear a lot about today.  Because cooperatives are social businesses, they easily often attract support of patient capital from corporate entities, they can also generate revenue that meets the costs of running their organisations and people we serve are willing to pay for what meets their needs, because they are members.

When I first met Registrar of Cooperatives in March 2016, he told me that they had about five thousand cooperatives today the same office is struggling with how to support 47 thousand cooperatives, worth 18million people and they are in all sectors of the economy. They urgently need organisational development, business development, financial literacy, audit, legal, trade, and ESG advisory support, this is self-financing social businesses. After all, in 1970 cooperatives in this country employed, two and half times of Uganda’s public services, we have done it before and we can do it again.

These two examples above are about changing the mindset for everyone: from project proposals to business plans; from resource mobilisation/fundraising to business revenue generation; from workshops and seminars to delivering real products and services that address needs of clients; from being non-governmental organisations to being citizen civic agencies; from mistrust to collaboration amidst our weaknesses and differences; from dependency mindset to self-help and self-responsibility; from funding recipients to shareholders, from short-term projects to long term development agenda; from expending to finish donor budget to diligent  cost cutting;  from funding to financing; from budget spend to investing my time and talent where we plan to reap; from charity employees to social business owners!.

These also requires friendly government policies such as tax rebates to philanthropists/givers; tax-exemption to mutuals businesses; and better coordination of givers; annual award recognition to givers; and a clear national definition and criteria for philanthropists/givers. It requires more of a facilitatory and less of controlling regulatory compliance framework.

FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY!

https://thecooperator.news/uganda-evaluation-week-ongoing-in-kampala/

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