Prof. Bukenya and Mr. Jae Change Lee President of the Saemual Undong

The Vice President Prof. Gilbert Bukenya has shared his great desire to join hands with developmental friends of Africa in setting up a modern model village in Uganda. “The people are scattered and we want to bring them together so that they can access all facilities and this is the only way we can accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in which special innovations need to be put in place if great impact is to be registered by 2015 as planned”.

With the current status of the rural villages, the MDGs that are meant to provide concrete, numerical benchmarks for tackling extreme poverty may seem distant from what is expected especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Having visited South Korea and met with leaders of organizations like Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Canaan Farmers School and Saemaul Undong whose innovations contributed to South Korea’s great development, the Vice President got confirmation that well established villages were the key for transforming poor S. Korea in 1960s into the 12th largest economical powerhouse now.

Well planned villages with descent housing, health centers, schools, clean water, sources of energy, sewage lagoons, road networks, small scale industries, community halls, sports grounds and other necessities made it happen.

These organizations can help us in mind setting amongst the community people and also skill development as we struggle for better lives, not only for the individuals but also for the benefit of all societies.  The Vice President said that this was the only way we could zone the villages and have each village specializing in one or two produces and it would be easy to have food or fruit processing technology and any other simple machinery for each zone.

He is more than ready to champion the modern village concept because he longs to have Uganda and Africa move faster citing out that Korea in 1960 had a GDP of 90$ less than that of Uganda which was 240$. “Today, Korea’s GDP stands at 27,000$ and that of Uganda staggers at 540$; what happened?”

There is need for Africa to start running and this requires copying from the experience of the Koreans who began with small village movements with emphasis on diligence, self help and cooperation.

Prof. Bukenya is grateful to different people who have promised maximum support to this modern village movement which is the way for having oneness in communities and able to work together for prosperity and thrive.