Those who cause the least, suffer the most: The injustice behind urban flooding
Muhereza says as Uganda experiences increasingly intense rainfall associated with climate change and changing weather patterns, urban flooding is becoming a familiar crisis. Yet flooding is not simply a natural disaster.
Dancan Muhereza
By Dancan Muhereza
Every time Kampala floods, the city's inequalities rise to the surface.
The roads become rivers, businesses close, traffic grinds to a halt, and livelihoods are disrupted. But while floodwaters affect the entire city, they do not affect everyone equally.
The people forced to wade through contaminated water to reach work, the families whose homes are inundated, and the women struggling to access health services are rarely the same people whose activities have contributed most to the problem.
As Uganda experiences increasingly intense rainfall associated with climate change and changing weather patterns, urban flooding is becoming a familiar crisis. Yet flooding is not simply a natural disaster.
It is also the result of decades of planning decisions, environmental degradation and development choices that have increased the vulnerability of some communities while protecting others
The uncomfortable truth is that many of the activities driving flood risk in our cities generate private benefits but impose public costs.
Across Kampala and other urban centres, commercial buildings, shopping malls, residential estates and expanding road networks have transformed the natural landscape.
Large areas that once absorbed rainwater have been covered with concrete and asphalt. Wetlands that served as natural buffers have been encroached upon or destroyed. Drainage channels have been narrowed, obstructed or neglected. When heavy rains fall, the water has nowhere to go.
Instead, the highest costs fall on market vendors, informal workers, low-income families and residents of flood-prone settlements. Their homes are damaged. Their businesses are disrupted. Their children miss school.
Their already limited incomes are stretched further by losses they can least afford. Those who contribute the least to creating flood risks are frequently the ones forced to live with their consequences.
This is not merely an environmental problem. It is a question of justice.
Flooding also amplifies existing inequalities in health. Health facilities can become inaccessible, essential services are interrupted, and disease risks increase. Women and girls often face additional challenges accessing sexual and reproductive health services.
For households already struggling to make ends meet, floods create another layer of hardship. Meanwhile, wealthier residents are far more likely to afford alternative transport, relocate temporarily, seek treatment elsewhere or recover quickly from losses.
The result is a city where vulnerability is not shared equally.
Of course, responsibility does not rest solely with large developers or government institutions. Communities also have an important role to play.
Poor waste management contributes to blocked drainage systems, while local action can help identify and address emerging flood risks. But focusing only on individual behaviour ignores the larger structural problems that make flooding inevitable in many areas.
The scale of the problem demands accountability at every level.
Communities must improve waste management and protect local drainage channels. City authorities must enforce planning regulations, prevent encroachment on wetlands and invest in resilient infrastructure.
The challenge is particularly urgent because Uganda's urban population is growing rapidly. Informal settlements continue to expand, infrastructure struggles to keep pace with demand and local governments often lack the resources needed to manage growth effectively.
When urban development prioritises short-term commercial gains over long-term environmental sustainability, vulnerable communities pay the price.
That price is not measured only in damaged property or lost income. It is measured in reduced access to healthcare, disrupted education, increased exposure to disease and diminished opportunities for those already facing significant barriers.
Uganda cannot build resilient cities while treating flood management as merely an engineering problem. Better drainage is necessary, but it is not enough. Flood management must be integrated into a broader vision of fair and inclusive urban development.
This means protecting wetlands, strengthening planning systems, investing in resilient infrastructure and ensuring that climate adaptation efforts prioritise the needs of vulnerable communities rather than those with the loudest voices or deepest pockets
Ultimately, the question is not simply how to stop Kampala and other cities from flooding
It is also who benefits from the way our cities are built, who bears the risks when those choices go wrong, and whether we are willing to confront the inequalities embedded in urban development itself.
Floodwaters expose more than weaknesses in drainage systems. They expose weaknesses in our commitment to fairness.
Until those who create flood risks are held accountable and those most vulnerable are placed at the centre of urban planning, the people who contribute least to the problem will continue to carry its heaviest burden. And that is an injustice Uganda can no longer afford to ignore
The writer is the Project Officer-Climate Change at Reproductive Health Uganda