Why locally led development is critical for the success of biodiversity conservation

Communities that live on the edges of national parks and forests play a critical role in protecting wildlife and forests in Uganda. They have a personal stake in doing so because what happens in these protected areas impacts their livelihoods, from wildlife emerging from parks and eating their crops to loggers and poachers stealing productive resources from forests.

However, many of the community-based organizations (CBOs) that have emerged to address these challenges lack the capacity for sustained leadership in biodiversity conservation. The USAID Biodiversity for Resilience (B4R) Activity works across five protected area landscapes in Uganda to help CBOs strengthen their capacity to develop, own, and lead local biodiversity conservation efforts. 

We spoke with USAID B4R’s Chief of Party, Jennifer Talbot, about the role of locally led development in Uganda’s biodiversity conservation space and how the project approaches strengthening its community partners. 

How is B4R approaching locally led development in biodiversity activities in Uganda?

There are several ways to look at locally led development in this project. First, most of our project staff are Ugandan. Second, we’ve partnered with over 30 Ugandan non-government organizations (NGOs), CBOs, and companies to develop innovative ways to address biodiversity conservation challenges in partnership with local communities. These partners ensure activities have local buy-in, are contextually relevant, and are more likely to be sustained after the project ends. We also work very closely with Uganda’s wildlife, national forestry, and local government authorities, engaging stakeholders from the national level to grassroot communities. This includes quarterly pause-and-reflect meetings to make sure we’re responding to their needs and collaboratively planning and monitoring project implementation. 

USAID B4R is particularly focused on building the capacity of CBOs in natural resources management given their critical, frontline role in leading and sustaining biodiversity conservation efforts. To hold ourselves accountable for this, the project has an indicator tracking the results of our work to strengthen the capacity of these organizations.

How does working with community-based organizations differ from other local partners? 

CBOs in Uganda often lack the budget, leadership, and staff resources that established NGOs have. The CBOs we work with are loose coalitions of farmers, livestock herders, or forest-adjacent communities that have come together to manage natural resources and improve their livelihoods. Often, their major hurdle is generating revenue, so they have a budget to function. 

USAID B4R supports manager positions for a few CBOs and helps them mobilize sustainable revenue streams so they can continue to fund such positions. The Rurambira Community Conservancy (RCC) near Lake Mburo National Park is a good example. We helped them strengthen their leadership and governance capacity, enabling them to organize general assembly meetings each year to openly and fairly elect new leaders. This has inspired confidence among members and attracted new ones along with a private sector buyer for the honey they produce. RCC members and the private partner have since agreed to contribute funds to help cover the CBO’s operating costs and a conservancy manager position, which USAID B4R previously funded. With stronger leadership, governance, and transparency, RCC has transformed itself into a more respected and dependable community partner for wildlife management on community lands with both the private sector and government, opening new opportunities for collaboration and mutual support.

What does building capacity of these local organizations look like and what has been the result? 

We started by conducting baseline participatory local organizational capacity assessments with CBOs to assess their capacity needs. We then co-developed capacity development action plans to address these priorities. We have yet to complete endline assessments to quantify their strengthened capacity, but we do work with them daily and can see that their strengthened capacity is supporting biodiversity conservation goals. Most of the CBOs have strengthened their leadership, governance, and planning capacities, while their financial management and ability to collaborate and partner still need more support. 

What have you learned about locally led development through this project? 

We have learned that we need to focus on setting up local organizations for success by jointly discussing their priorities, capacities, geographies, and what is realistic to accomplish in a certain timeframe. Projects and donors grossly underestimate the amount of time, effort, face-to-face interaction, and hands-on work this takes. 

For example, when we started the project, we focused on strengthening the capacity of local CBOs, knowing that they would need support. What we didn’t realize was how much demand for support would come from our local private sector partners too. In addition to providing them with grants or procuring their services, our grants, monitoring, and technical teams regularly visit their offices and provide hands-on support and mentoring on planning, monitoring, and reporting. Private sector staff turnover has been high, and it has taken one to two years of discussion, trust building, and co-creation between the project and each private partner before we could establish a formal agreement. Once implementation with these partners started, it took about a year before activities ran smoothly. So, to have productive partnerships up and running well by year three, it has taken early and continuous engagement with many partners, trust building, capacity assessments, and due diligence. 

Although we completed pre-award assessments and chose to provide fixed awards with fixed milestones to all our local partners, we have had to extend timelines and break milestones into smaller tasks several times for each local partner, whether a private company or a CBO. We have learned that this is to be expected: it is part of the process of implementation and hands-on capacity strengthening of our local partners and needs to be factored into project and resource planning.

What advice do you have for other projects looking to leverage locally led development? 

First, locally led development is more than just finding a promising partner and helping them scale. For example, since USAID B4R works across five geographies, it has been difficult to ask one organization doing well in one area to expand when they don’t have the relationships, trust, and contextual understanding in those new areas to be as successful as they have been in their own location. There are many local organizations spread around Uganda, often doing similar things, that we can engage. This means more upfront and ongoing work for a project to manage more contracts and strengthen the capacity of more organizations, but it can be more effective. 

While CBOs may be starting from a different point than other better-established NGOs, these community groups are critical for conservation as gatekeepers to forests and national parks and stewards of these resources. We can’t just partner with them for the life of a project and expect biodiversity conservation aims to be achieved—we must also support them in strengthening their organizational structures and capacity to operate effectively long-term. 

Finally, there is no one-size-fits-all approach for strengthening the capacity of local organizations. Flexibility is needed to take a customized approach with each. Projects need to have a staff member dedicated to local capacity development who will work closely with the other members of the technical team to identify, assess, support, co-create, and monitor local partners throughout the project.

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