50317, Usevya, Kashamkulo Street, Katavi, Tz

Based on the partnership of WASIMA, Honeyguide Foundation, and Uyumbu WMA which is primarily focusing on building stronger Governance and Management systems in the WMA. In March this year, WASIMA and Honey Guide Foundation convened a baseline assessment of Governance and equity at Uyumbu WMAs using a tool called SAGE that was developed by IIED in 2019. This method has been used in over 45 protected areas worldwide including 4 WMAs in Tanzania and has shown very promising results in capturing stakeholder feedback and recommendations regarding protected area governance and management functions. In many places where SAGE was conducted stakeholders such as Investors, community, NGOs, Government, and WMA leadership felt it was a very useful way to bring up different voices and a conversation of issues that would otherwise not come up in normal WMA meetings. The above-mentioned activity is among many others in the general Uyumbu project for Uyumbu WMA. 

This activity seeks to introduce and bring up different voices and a conversation about issues that would otherwise not come up in normal WMA meetings. The results of SAGE will help us all curate our governance capacity-building support for UWIMA.

This activity was done by conducting a stakeholder analysis (level of interest and influence) which was done in early February 2024; about seven stakeholder groups were obtained; Community (men’s and women), governments (local government and conservation authorities, department of Natural Resource from Urambo district) Investors and NGOs, and WMAs’ leadership (AA members, management and the Board of Trustees (BoT). All the stakeholders were invited to attend the SAGE workshop in Urambo town at the Roman Catholic hall. The workshop was a three-day activity; on day 0 the facilitator’s team met with the group leaders and introduced them to the purpose of the workshop including a short description of the SAGE and the pillars (Principles) of good governance. 

In the session the group leaders suggested the eight governance principles and questions, key negative and positive impacts, and key rights (resource owner or use and human rights); this was led by both two teams. On day 1 the workshop was launched by the guest of honor the acting District Commissioner and District Executive Director from Urambo District where 60 people participated. During the workshop the participants were organized into the selected groups for discussion of the prepared questions based on the eight suggested eight principles of good governance, key impacts, and rights, this takes a whole day for the participants to complete the task of the day.  The workshop ended on day 2 by synthesizing the views and suggestions from the group discussions this was a two-way facilitation method between the participants and the facilitators which involved a presentation aided by portraits of diagrams representing.

The workshop started with pre-workshop training for the group leaders which was successful by briefing on the purpose of the workshop and going through the discussion questions, choosing eight out of ten principles of good governance, key rights of community members (human rights and resource owner or use right), key positive and negative impacts.

 Interestingly, the SAGE workshop was attended by the acting Urambo District Commissioner Mr. Innocent Nsena, the acting Urambo District Executive Director Mr. Masoud I Masoud, and the Uyumbu governor as the guests of honor. Nevertheless, the Urambo District Council Chairmen who is also the chairman of the UWIMA board of trustees Mr. Adam Malunkwi was among the guests and participants of the workshop. In their speech, both of them assured that the local government will be in close collaboration with the UWIMA, WASIMA, and the Honey Guide Foundation during the project implementation to ensure the sustainability of the Uyumbu WMA

During the workshop all the prioritized eight principles of good governance were discussed by the stakeholders who were grouped into six groups instead of seven as previously targeted, the discussion was led by the group leaders and facilitators from WASIMA, WCMA, and Honey Guide, almost every participant was fully participated in the group to contribute their view and perception on the UWIMA governance.

The workshop ended with a presentation and general discussion as the feedback on the group discussion which was led by the WASIMA and Honey Guide Foundation team; during the presentation and discussion some arguments and suggestions were raised by the participant based on the views were provided in the group discussions, this includes the lack of education among the community,  management skills from the WMA leadership; poor collaboration with other stakeholders including community, local government, and conservation agencies e.g. Ugalla River National Park and Ugalla Game Reserve on addressing the human-wildlife conflicts around the UWIMA and some human activities such as the establishment of settlements and agriculture within the buffer zone area. The District Game Officer, Ugalla River National Park, and Ugalla Game Reserve also assured to provide guidance and support to Uyumbu WMA on addressing the Huma wildlife conflict and other associated wildlife crimes to the Uyumbu WMA and the community.