About

Greater Kampala is Uganda’s economic engine, accounting for over 40% of the national GDP. However, rapid urbanization has outpaced infrastructure development, leading to traffic congestion, flooding, and service delivery gaps.

Ahead of the urban development program, the Government of Uganda and partners conducted a situational analysis. The findings of this study are outlined below:

Urbanization Rate

Globally, the rate of urbanization is increasing with 60% of the world’s population expected to live in urban areas by 2030 from 54.5% in 2014. In Uganda, urbanization has been growing very fast (5.2% per annum), especially for the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area (5.6% per annum). This, coupled with the high concentrations of people living in slums has exposed the GKMA to massive pollution, encroachment on natural vegetation (45% of the urban vegetation encroached), wetlands and buffers; degradation of ecological systems and flooding due to poor drainage infrastructure (65% of the drainages are narrow and poorly managed) across the GKMA.

These challenges, among others, have resulted in the loss of lives and properties. Since 1991, Kampala Capital City alone has experienced over 153 disasters, resulting in deaths, injuries, and damage to infrastructure. The same situation is emerging in the rest of the GKMA Entities. Furthermore, this region faces various challenges related to inadequate urban planning and management, which, coupled with limited coordination has resulted into uncoordinated investments and lack of synergies, and thereby adversely affecting service delivery.

Roads Network

Further to the above, the biggest part of the road network across the GKMA is still unpaved, while the paved sections/links requires urgent reconstruction. Out of the 73% of gravel or earth road network, 6.3% that cuts across the different jurisdictions of GKMA is in bad condition and requires urgent upgrading to improve connectivity, accessibility and interconnectivity.

The estimated economic cost of traffic congestion in the GKMA is at USD1.5 million daily, representing 1.9% and 4.2% of the national and GKMA GDP respectively. Traffic generated from GKMA, through its arterial network towards the city, congests and grid locks the various road junctions and interconnecting nodes.

Job Opportunities

About one million Ugandans enter the job market annually, 95% of whom are youths; and only 15% find employment. Statistics indicate that the rate of unemployment is at 22% for Kampala city, of which 13.6% are female and 8.4% male (KCCA Statistical Abstract 2019).

Nationally, unemployment rate is at 9.7% with that of youth being slightly higher at 13%. The unemployment rates are partly due to the agrarian nature of Uganda’s economy. The population outside the formal labor force are forced to engage in side work even for a few hours and at low wages.

Policies and Systems

System automation and re-engineering are some of the key attributes for enhancing local revenue management and service delivery. The MoKCC&MA and GKMA Local Governments have 40% of their systems automated and re-engineered to support implementation of critical government programs.

However due to the low budget allocations and releases, the Ministry and the Implementing Entities cannot meet the required system automation and the collected revenues are at minimal. The physical planning aspects, spatial planning infrastructure, revenue management and systems are not automated, which limits accountability, transparency and delivery of Government services.

Other e-governance systems that are immediately needed include among others: Monitoring and evaluation (M&E), Spatial Data and GIS Infrastructure across the GKMA; roll out of E-Governance initiatives, Own Source Revenue Automation and establishing a communication and stakeholder engagement platform.

Recognizing the urgent need for integrated urban planning, the Government of Uganda, with support from the World Bank and Agence Française de Développement (AFD), initiated the GKMA-UDP. The program builds on past efforts and introduces a metropolitan-wide approach to urban development, positioning Greater Kampala as a model for other cities in Uganda and across the region.