The Acholi sub-region received a score of 98% in community profiling under the Parish Development Model (PDM), which is supported by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS).
PDM pillar six requires parish leaders to profile services and facilities in their parishes, such as schools, health centers, agricultural extension services, financial institutions (mobile money), and other SACCOs groups.
In general, the pillar is in charge of the model’s execution by providing coordination and implementing structures, as well as functions at the national and sub-national levels.
On July 31, this year, parish leaders in the Acholi sub-region began community profiling, a process that was supposed to be completed in 15 days.
This came after UBoS trained district planners and ICT officers in Acholi for two days as trainers of trainers on community profiling tools, and the parish leaders were then trained to carry out the profiling operation.
Kitgum municipality received 100%, Lamwo and Kitgum district received 99%, Amuru district received 96%, Omoro district received 93%, Agago received 87%, Gulu district received 85%, Pader received 82%, and Nwoya received 80% in the Acholi sub-region.
This increases the sub-region’s overall performance to 98%.
According to Monica Rutahanda, a senior statistician at UBoS who also serves as the Acholi sub-region’s coordinator, Nwoya, Pader, and Agago districts have poor performance because they began community profiling three days late.
“The performance is good because the community understood the PDM pillar six of the parish-based management information system, which made our parish chiefs record any challenge in this profiling exercise,” Rutahanda explained.
She also stated that the strong performance of community profiling will aid in the improvement of services.
According to James Muwonge, UBOS’s director of methodology and statistical coordination services, community profiling is an important exercise that will help not only the PDM implementation activity but also districts in their budget planning.
“This could be a good baseline information that will provide leadership in different levels of administrations with the tools they need to inform decision making and also resource allocation,” he said.
Muwonge noted that in order to increase the welfare of households, they want to know which services households in their parish utilize and how they may be assisted with better services.
“This data will aid in the implementation of PDM and local government because they will know which parishes have which services or which parishes are having difficulty accessing specific services, and the district council and leadership will decide how resources can be directed or allocated.”
