Indigenous communities lack the capacity to engage the state more effectively. They call upon Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to continuously build their capacity. They give an example of Total which gave a 5,000 environmental impact report and gave them 3 days to study the report and gave their input after three days.
Their strategy was to allocate the chapters to a couple of people who got holed up somewhere and read the entire reported and gave their detailed input.
UDN works in 24 districts in Uganda. There are other organizations such as the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG) which can help in their own way to build the capacity of the indigenous and minority communities in Uganda.
The Batwa people or Twa people or ‘pymy’ who were evicted out of the Bwindi rainforest after its gazettement (minority group in Uganda) have no access to political representation in the districts where they reside. There is need for the “keepers of the forest” community to actively participate in public planning and budgeting.
