TITLE:
Faith-Based Organisations, Old Age Pension Scheme & Programme Sustainability: The Case of Compassion International-Supported Children and Youth Development Programme in Uganda
AUTHORS:
Israel Samson Musana
KEYWORDS:
Poverty, Compassion, Children, Youth, Pension
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.14 No.8,
August
17,
2026
ABSTRACT: Taking Compassion International as a case study, the paper examines the extent to which Faith-Based Organisations can leverage the Old Age Pension Scheme to generate revenue for financial sustainability, poverty alleviation, and programme continuity in Uganda’s local settings. To present the challenges faced by Compassion International in its effort to alleviate economic poverty, historical and contemporary research methodologies were employed. Secondly, Compassion International’s policy frameworks and programme implementation guidelines were examined. Thirdly, physical visits were made to field centres. Finally, the research had casual interactions with the programme alumni to learn about their vocational outcomes. Study findings revealed that 18,586 of the 1,019,187 children registered for sponsorship support by Compassion International in Africa since the program’s inception had survived. This means that 98%, accounting for 1,000,601 children, dropped out of the sponsorship programme before attaining vocational skills. Next, 1408 of 4132 church partnerships survived, meaning that 2724 (66%) were terminated. Similar trends were observed in the local setting of Uganda. Few young people had graduated from the sponsorship programme and several local church partners were terminated. As a result, poverty is on the rise nationwide, even though Compassion International is active in 123 of Uganda’s 135 districts. The 2026 data from the Uganda National Bureau of Statistics show that of Uganda’s total population of 45,905,417, 44,138,557 people are experiencing multidimensional poverty. This study then suggests that if Compassion International leverage the old-age social security scheme to inculcate a culture of saving in local communities, then the treasury can be invested to grow people’s funds, with surplus used to support more needy people as years unfold. Such an arrangement is most likely to minimise children’s dropouts, reduce termination of local church partnerships, enhance local ownership, and promote programme sustainability and continuity.