Everything we do has just one goal: the sustained well-being of smallholder households, especially the most vulnerable. Our transformational development approach is holistic-instead of focusing on a single issue, we look at all the interconnected areas that affect the well-being of smallholder households in a community. We work with families, Partners and communities to address complex challenges, ensuring that the livelihoods of our programme participants are improved
The purpose for which SARD-Net exists:
SARD-Net exists in order to develop capacities and capabilities of the network members and target rural communities to promote sustainable agriculture as strategy for rural development and the achievement of sustainable livelihoods of rural households and their communities in Uganda.
SARD-Net’s Development Strategy:
Informed by the Brundtland report on Environment and Development (ED), the Rio Earth Summit and, the African Agricultural Education and Training Institutions (AAETIs) workshop in Kenya, SARD-Net adapts Sustainable Agriculture (SA) as a strategy for the development of sustainable livelihoods in Rural Uganda. The strategy focuses on economic, social, cultural, environmental, political and institutional factors necessary for the attainment of balanced, sustainable livelihoods for the present and future generations with emphasis on cross-cutting issues affecting the farm family and the geographical community within which the family exists.
SARD-Net’s Development Approach:
SARD-Net believes in the use of bottom-up and geographical community approach in the promotion of Sustainable Agriculture for Rural Development. The approach of SARD-Net is unique in that it focuses on the village or geographical community. It is bottom-up. The development process is that an active SARD-Net member mobilizes with the assistance of the local leaders, the LC 1 and opinion leaders. He/She gives every household a chance to participate in the development process. Through the facilitation of the mobiliser, the village forms a legal structure under the leadership of the Village Development Committee (VDC). Under this leadership and through trainings of their choice, the community is developed in to an institution which develops and implements its own development plans for community development. In case external support is required, SARD-Net links the village to development partners for support to complement local efforts. The whole process is participatory and involves all community members.
Development Process:
SARD-Net recognizes the place and role of process in sustainable development: these processes include: effective participatory and involvement of target communities in the identification of development issues: problems, alternative solutions, planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting of development initiatives and writing and communicating their own history of Development.