Access to Rural Non-Farm Livelihoods - Natural Resources Institute

children getting thin and dying, leaving many orphans. Although in the past they used to hunt
wild animals and fish in small local ponds and there was plenty of firewood, and now one has
to pay for meat and fish and wood, in general, things are much better now, particularly with
respect to food security.
Kitambuza is an agricultural village with just a few shops and kiosks clustered at a junction
of tracks and footpaths, with people mostly relying on the many shops and business in
Lwentulege, as well as its weekly market.
5.2 Income Generating Activities
Eight IGAs were listed at the initial community meeting. These included:
• primary production, such as rearing and selling both small livestock and cattle;
• trading activities, such as shopkeeping, or trade in agricultural produce or fish;
• processing of agricultural produce, such as the manufacture and sale of local beers and
spirits; and
• other small-scale manufacturing enterprises/ crafts, such as carpentry, and handicrafts,
such as pottery, basket and mat weaving, and crochet, knitting, and embroidery.
Other IGAs not listed at the meeting, but recorded at other times during the fieldwork
include:
• growing and selling crops 98 ;
• crafts, such as building;
• provision of services, such as midwifery, running a bar, or the sale of cooked food (pork);
and
• waged work or salaried, either as a daily paid farm labourer, or as a permanently
employed cowherd, or as a gardener in Kampala.
The head of a large polygamous household also has rental properties in Lwentulege which
generate a regular income without the need for activity.
The IGAs listed at the community meeting were ranked by importance (prevalence in the
community) by men and women. The results for the two groups were quite different, with
women ranking handicrafts first, followed by rearing and selling small livestock, and then
shopkeeping and the manufacture and sale of local beers and spirits, and men ranking trade in
agricultural produce and rearing and selling cattle, followed by carpentry, and then rearing
and selling small livestock 99 . In household interviews women were recorded more often
actually undertaking these activities than men, who may, at the meeting, have been
discussing their aspirations as much as their current activities.
At a separate meeting a different group of people defined wealth/wellbeing groups, and
ranked the importance of the IGAs originally listed at the community meeting to each
wealth/wellbeing group by gender. Four wealth/wellbeing groups were defined: the very
poor, the poor, those in the middle (“average”), and the well off (“rich”) 100 .
98 Not included by the group, who were focussing on non-farm (i.e., non crop-producing) IGAs.
99 See Appendix 10 for details.
100 See Appendix 11 for details.
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