News 27 of 153

Winnie Makumbi

It is with great sadness that the staff of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) convey their condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of Winnie Makumbi upon her sudden death on March 4, 2008. She was not yet 40.

 

Winnie was a gentle, gracious, wonderful colleague, and an important partner for IDRC. An inspiration for the people living in the Lubaga (Rubaga) Division she represented in Kampala, Uganda, Winnie was popularly known “as the mayor of Lubaga” and was the only female division chairperson in the country.

 

Her work to alleviate poverty and her determination to defend the rights of the most vulnerable urban poor extended beyond Lubaga to all of Kampala and Uganda, and to other developing countries.

 

IDRC was privileged to include her amongst its partners and witnessed firsthand her tireless efforts to help the poor, through her role in the development of urban agriculture ordinances in Kampala, and her participation in the IDRC-supported Edible Landscape project and 2006 World Water Forum.

 

Following her election as the first woman chair of Kampala’s Lubaga Division, Winnie represented the Kampala City Council at the World Water Forum held in Mexico in March 2006. There, as a panelist on wastewater use in urban agriculture, Winnie seized the opportunity to emphasize the importance of involving communities in the search for low-cost solutions to wastewater problems in poor urban areas since technical solutions, as good as they might be, must be accepted and owned by the communities. 

 

Winnie Makumbi is survived by her husband, Moses, and their four children.

 

News 27 of 153