The District Planner
The District Planning Unit is a supportive unit to the council. It guides and coordinates the Development Planning function in the District including the preparation of the District and Lower Local Government Development Plan, monitoring and evaluation of the plans and projects.
Mandate of the planning Unit: To develop comprehensive and integrated District Plans, monitor and evaluate their implementation.
Goal of the Planning Unit: To foster local development through planning management, Monitoring and evaluation of district programmes and projects.
Key Functions of the Unit.
- Formulating, developing and coordinating District development strategies, plans and budgets;
- Preparing and disseminating performance standards and indicators for the district to users;
- Providing Technical support to Departments in preparation and production of District Development Plans;
- Developing District investment priorities;
- Coordinating, monitoring and evaluating performance of District Development Plans programs and projects;
- Maintaining District Management Information System;
- Developing and maintaining an up-to-date district data bank;
- Appraising National and District Policy;
- Producing minutes of Technical Planning Committee.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR
Education Department.
With the introduction of Universal Primary Education (UPE), primary school enrolment increased from 10,723 in the year 1997 to 51,120 in 2016. Other tangible results include increased enrolment and girl-child education. We provide basic education to pupils in 134 public and 82 private primary schools, with a teaching staff of 1194 in government schools. The teacher pupil ratio has improved from 1:82 in 2002 50 1:43 in 2017. The District has increased completion rate in primary from 22% in 2002 to 48% in 2016. The District has constructed a total of 365 classrooms since 2002 and also improved on sanitation facilities by constructing latrines in primary schools. The pass rates and performance in national examinations has greatly improved up to 97% of the pupils who sit for PLE and division one has increased from 5% in 2002 to 10.8% in 2016. Under secondary education, we have 26 public secondary schools with 6985 students from 3384 in 2001 We have 4 government aided tertiary institutions and 1 Private University.
Health service provision. Working with several other partners, we deliver primary health care in the areas of promotive, preventive, curative, palliative and rehabilitative health services. The District provides curative and preventive health care in 01, Government Hospital, 01 NGO hospital 02 Government Health Centre IVs which are at a very constituency, 14 Health centre IIIs, 39 health centre IIs both for Government and private not for profit and Village Health Teams. Progress in improving the health standards of our community has been attained as indicated by: a penta vaccine coverage of 92.4 %, 57.8% deliveries of pregnant mothers in health units, 1.41 % out-patient department (OPD) per capita utilization, and a comprehensive HIV/AIDS service coverage of 88% and HIV prevalence rate of 6%, sanitation coverage of 94%, 4th ANC visit at 49.2% and overall national performance being at 70.3%.
Under Water and Sanitation, the Districtoperates and maintains safe water supply technologies and sanitation facilities to the rural communities of the District. Our investment in water supply infrastructure over the 16 year of existence include gravity flow schemes with 564 public tap stands, 770 protected spring wells 30 Shallow wells 35 deep wells-boreholes and a number of community tanks both in communities and schools.
Access to safe and clean water has increased in Kanungu District with an average increase from 51% in 2001 to 83% in 2019.
Youth empowerment.
With over 20.6 percent of our population between the age of 18-30 years, we develop and implement programs for the youth that are geared towards addressing youth’s needs, empowerment with skills and resources to enable youth attain self-reliance and contribute to development. Other services include funding youth income generating activities through the Youth Livelihood programme (YLP). 91 youth projects have implemented to 1126 youth and a Fish project pledged by His Excellency the President of Uganda is under construction in Kihihi Town council.
Improvement of the House hold income.
81 million tea seedlings have been distributed to 16,656 farmers and institutions. As a result two factories have been constructed namely Kigezi Highlands Tea Factory in Rugyeyo Sub county and Kinkizi Development Company Factory in Butogota Town Council also a second line has been installed in Kayonza growers tea factory in Butogota Town Council. We hope for more other factories to come as a result of increased tea production in the District
Under Coffee intervention. The District in collaboration with UCDA has distributed13,511,137 seedlings to farmers in the District over the last 10 years. Due to this intervention a number of new private coffee hullers/ factories have come to argument value addition. In the Live stock sector, under the intervention of His Excellency the President of Uganda, a total of 732 in calf heifers have been given out to farmers in collaboration with OWC.
Gender based violence.
With the strategy of small male action groups, the District has had a tremendous reduction in domestic violence especially against the women and also improved reproductive health.
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN THE DISTRICT.
- Location of the District. Kanungu is a boarder District to democratic republic of Congo which could be exploited for cross-border trade.
- existence of 3 airfields in the District that could be used to promote local investments in the area
- Soils. The most common types of soils are grayish brown, sandy room soils and reddish brown soils.
- These soils in the District can be used for the production of coffee in one side of the District, tea, cotton, rice, matooke, Irish potatoes, silk production, vanilla, honey production,
- existence of Water bodies for fish production, power generation, water for irrigation and for household use.
- Climate. The District has a tropical type of climate receiving reasonable and fairly well distributed annual rains of about 1200mm. This is favorable for agriculture both crop and livestock.
- Mining opportunities. There are tantalite reserves in Burema parish in Kanyatorogo and Kihanda in Kirima. There is existence of gold especially in Kanungu Town council, Kayonza sub county and Mpungu sub county.
- There are oil products in Kihihi sub county under Gangi block.
- Tourism industry. Kanungu District ranks among the Top six Districts in the country in terms of animal and plant diversity and specifically diversity of mammalian species. The presence of gorillas and natural beauty of the hills have made the District one of the leading tourism destination area in the country. Therefore Kanungu District is a geo-political power of the country in terms of tourism
- There are also a big number of successful people in the private sector from Kanungu who could be used to attract investors and also to invest in Kanungu District
- The District has come up with a public-private partnership policy. Where the private sector is supposed to take lead in development and the District provides a conducive environment for the private sector
key issues that could stimulate development in the District are:
- Water for production. The District lacks an irrigation scheme. The District only depends on rain water which affects the production on a large scale.
- Consolidating unity and preventing conflicts between religion, constituencies, political parties and any other form that may impact on the unity of the people of Kanungu District
- Creation of development for a for the people of Kanungu staying out side Kanungu to lobby for financial support, advocacy and for marketing Kanungu District
- Poor road net works in the District and lack of a tarmac road connecting to the neighboring Districts. This increases on the cost of production and also on failure to attract investors’ local, national and international investors.
- High rate of Load shedding of electricity that affects the cost of doing business especially agribusiness factories in the District.