Members of WENDA together with executive members West Nile parliamentary caucus during the meeting. Photo by Anselm Ojaru.

By Anslem Ojaru

Arua City

Members of West Nile Development Association (WENDA) together with executive members of Westnile parliamentary caucus have come together to find affirmative solutions to address the developmental blockages affecting progress in westnile region.

At the development agenda sitting and consensus meeting held at desert breeze hotel in Arua city, the leaders highlighted the challenges affecting the growth of westnile in the sectors of Trade and Commerce, Education, health, infrastructure among others.

The chairman of WENDA Anyama Williams, notes that togetherness is the first step to solving the development bottlenecks in Westnile region. “so what we are starting to do is in the right direction, once we organize ourselves and we put on paper the agenda of this region and we stop infighting at whatever level we work as a team we recognize contribution of stakeholders with respect and discipline we are good to go and we can achieve much more.”
 
The vice chairperson of Westnile parliamentary caucus Bhoka Didi George states that this is a foundation meeting to reflect on key development interventions meant to bring westnile region to its glory. “We are here as the leaders of Westnile to build consensus on what should be the development priorities for Westnile in which we highlighted our context as the Westnile region and the key areas we need to focus on.”

George Lemeriga the chairperson of westnile planers board however urges that there is need to have a mindset change among the local leaders to realize development in the different sectors. “The element of mindset change is key so what we are going to do is to have interventions  that can  change people’s mind because some of our leaders have not seen what is happening elsewhere especially the local leaders to go and  learn for other areas.” 

During the meeting the different sector heads presented the challenges and the possible opportunities in the aspects of environment and climate, governance, coordination and advocacy for strengthening regional development in westnile region.