The Africa Promise: Is It Attainable?

The idea behind Denver-based Africa Development Promise is to provide the citizens of certain impoverished communities in Rwanda and Uganda with basic access to energy, water, and food. These are the things they would not obtain otherwise because of challenges in their part of the world.

Agriculture in Uganda

Uganda is mostly known for its agriculture. They are the producers of coffee, tea, cotton, and tobacco, and smallholder farmers make up 60 percent of Uganda’s agriculture. These positions are held by 70 percent of the women.

With almost two decades of experience in the water, sanitation, and global financial business, that is what Monica Labiche Brown is doing after she founded Africa Development Promise. The organization is a non-profit with offices in Denver and Uganda.

Supporting African Women

The mission of the organization is focused on helping these women, the ones doing most of the chores, who stand in line for many hours to fetch water for the household. 

Labiche Brown says she has seen firsthand the struggle of the Ugandan people, and it is one of the reasons she is passionate about building the pathways to economic independence for Africa.

On June 25 at the school of Hotel Management at the University of Denver, the organization brought in a special guest, Uganda’s ambassador to the United States, to join in a discussion it described as Journey to Sustainable development, the nexus of water, energy, agriculture and food security.

Other special guests, from the government and business, included Julie Labonte, the senior vice president of MWH Global with headquarters in Denver, Luka Powanga, a professor in the School of Management at Regis University, and Jamie Van Leeuwen, a senior advisor to Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper.

Africa Facts

With the event, we learned some eye-opening facts: over 750 million people in the world do not have access to clean water, 1.4 billion do not have any form of energy, and lastly, over 800 million go hungry a day.

That’s according to the accounts from the men and women on a discussion panel that was part of the event. 

Through the presentation of each panelist, the understanding of how energy, water, and food are all interconnected, came alive.

In her opening statements, the HW Oliver Wonekha said, ” We should give Ugandan women the tools to be able to extract oil from the palm nut; and see what they will do with those hours when they can do their job quicker, easier, and faster.”

A great statement made by Leeuwen was, “how do we take this conversation out of the room” he said. “That’s the main question today.”

“How do we take these panel talks and instead of throwing money at the issue, go down to the cities and help these people?”

Panelists proposed many solutions to these African issues. 

AGOA Bridges the Gap

The discussion included talk about the role of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) whose policies help in bridging this gap in the trade of mushrooms, coffee, and tea.

With the promises that Ambassador Wonekha and the panelists made, and the determination of Africa Development Promise, we can see this becoming a great way of generating funds for African women in Uganda.