This presentation features an innovative initiative to improve governance for agricultural and allied development. The initiative, which is currently being piloted in the Rwenzori Region of Western Uganda, combines a set of coordinated local civil society interventions with best global corporate practices in improving development governance.

The "closed-loop" governance mechanisms of the initiative link grassroots to regional leadership, starting and ending with villagers and their own community process facilitators. They also link all-stakeholder regional leadership to national government and the array of outside donors, so the best from outside can be applied in the best way within the region. And they overtly recognize the cultural barriers to success, and openly seek to address and bridge them.

The initiative established civil society as a government partner in development, gathering the most useful data for evidence-based decisions, building awareness and transparency and facilitating a process that makes the good leaders and the communities they serve more successful together. A grassroots monitoring process (PRMT) has been developed that is being leveraged across Uganda, and across many other EU programs. Several corporate best practices are being applied, including driving culture change from within, comprehensive situation assessments, requiring a sustainability plan with measures at the beginning, insisting on "full length of project" commitments, saving detailed planning for stage-by-stage with the teams responsible and using mechanisms that can efficiently adapt to learning along the way.