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After a successful completion of the assessment exercise in the 7 districts of Arua, Gulu, Soroti, Mbale, Masaka, Mbarara and Kasese, public dialogues have been held to discuss the findings with district level stakeholders. The dialogues were held at a regional level bringing together politicians, civil society, media, and local councilors. The district reports highlighted key findings regarding the state of political pluralism and democracy in the districts.

During the dialogues, the assessment was commended by stakeholders as being very informative and providing a wide range of conclusions and recommendations. In addition, the assessment reports were discussed on radio talk shows held in each of the four major regions of Uganda. There again, the assessment was welcomed as a necessary initiative.

In another initiative to strength the capacity of local actors to promote democracy, network platforms between civil, society media and local councilors were formed in each of the seven districts. The networks provide a platform under which the three target groups will on a regular basis exchange ideas and best practices in promoting political pluralism and democracy in their respective districts and regions. The networks are part of the expected outputs of the project on strengthening civil society, media and local council’s capacity to promote political pluralism, democratic participation and representation at the local government level. Resulting from the network meetings that were held after the public dialogues, participants from each district were able to make concrete action plans for the next actions they would implement under the network.

Results from all the seven districts have been synthesized into one national report which shall be launched at a high level meeting in Kampala on the 16th of June 2010 at Protea Hotel, 2.00.pm and 4.30 pm. The Uganda Minister for Local Government shall launch the report in an event where, key stakeholders in democracy promotion, policy makers, and development partners are among others expected to participate.