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Uganda's drought-flood cycle is not just a hazard; it is a billion-shilling opportunity
Uganda paid this bill once, in full view of the Auditor General: sh373 billion in a single year. Spent early instead of late, that same shilling saves roughly 15 times its value. That is not a climate slogan—it is one of the best investment cases sitting untouched in the country's own books.
Dr Juliet Kabasiita Kiiza. (Courtesy)
By: Admin ., Journalist @New Vision
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OPINION
By Dr Juliet Kabasiita Kiiza
Uganda loses an estimated sh373 billion a year to floods and drought, according to a December 2023 Auditor General audit. We usually read that number as proof of damage done. It is worth reading it differently: as a market Uganda is leaving almost entirely unclaimed.
Right now, both ends of that loss are playing out at once. In Karamoja, a punishing dry spell has already claimed lives this year, echoing the 2022 hunger crisis in the same region, which a Uganda Human Rights Commission investigation found had killed more than 2,200 people. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Water and Environment has warned that an El Nino event is increasingly likely to develop before the year is out, bringing heavier rains and a real risk of floods and landslides between August and December. That season begins within weeks, while Karamoja is still burying its dead from the drought that came before it.
We treat these as two separate emergencies, each with its own relief convoy and its own press conference. Treating them instead as one climate-water problem, and investing in it accordingly, is where the bigger opportunity lies.
Here is what that opportunity actually looks like on the ground, not in theory, and the best of it does not need a fresh payment every year to keep working. There are borehole mechanics and drainage crews paid to check water systems year-round, the way a garage services a car, instead of waiting for a breakdown. There is insurance that pays a farmer automatically when rains fail or floods come, no paperwork required, a private market running on premiums, not handouts.
There are carbon credits: Uganda has already been paid real money for protecting its forests, thirty-one million US dollars from the Green Climate Fund in 2025, the first such payment to any African country. Under Uganda's new carbon market rules, a well-managed forest or rangeland can now earn that income every year it keeps growing, not a one-off grant, but a repeat sale. And there is money in turning city rubbish into value, the way composting and recycling businesses in Mbale already do, instead of just paying to dump it.
Money spent this way returns, on average, about fifteen times its value in avoided disaster costs, a rate few investments in Uganda can match. None of this is charity. Each is a business whose customer base, Uganda's climate, is not going anywhere.
Here is what that opportunity actually looks like on the ground, not in theory, and the best of it does not need a fresh payment every year to keep working. There are borehole mechanics and drainage crews paid to check water systems year-round, the way a garage services a car, instead of waiting for a breakdown. There is insurance that pays a farmer automatically when rains fail or floods come, no paperwork required, a private market running on premiums, not handouts.
There are carbon credits: Uganda has already been paid real money for protecting its forests, thirty-one million US dollars from the Green Climate Fund in 2025, the first such payment to any African country. Under Uganda's new carbon market rules, a well-managed forest or rangeland can now earn that income every year it keeps growing, not a one-off grant, but a repeat sale. And there is money in turning city rubbish into value, the way composting and recycling businesses in Mbale already do, instead of just paying to dump it.
Money spent this way returns, on average, about fifteen times its value in avoided disaster costs, a rate few investments in Uganda can match. None of this is charity. Each is a business whose customer base, Uganda's climate, is not going anywhere.
This is not a one-district problem, so it cannot be a one-district fix. Uganda's central “cattle corridor”, Rakai, Sembabule, Nakasongola and nearby districts, is semi-arid enough that researchers flag it as chronically drought-vulnerable; as recently as late 2024, a dry spell left pasture parched across Rakai and Isingiro. On Mount Elgon, the slopes above Bududa have buried whole villages before, and 2010 was neither the first landslide there nor the last. Different hazards, same failure: water never managed across seasons, only survived.
This is not a uniquely Ugandan story. The Horn of Africa spent much of the last decade lurching between drought and flood, and Kenya paid in lives and displaced families when the rains finally returned too fast for hardened ground to absorb. Uganda has more notice than Kenya had.
None of the investment case above replaces emergency response. When people are hungry or displaced, help cannot wait, and no insurance payout or carbon credit changes that. But relief alone is a cost that repeats forever, while the right investment keeps paying for itself. Take a single valley tank built in a drought-hit district: built once, it cuts the relief trucks needed every dry season, and replanting the surrounding land can start earning carbon credit income within a few years too. One investment, two returns, instead of a relief bill that returns every year. Each emergency should tell us where to invest next, not simply what to pay for this time.
Uganda paid this bill once, in full view of the Auditor General: sh373 billion in a single year, drought or flood, take your pick. Spent early instead of late, that same shilling saves roughly fifteen times its value. That is not a climate slogan. It is one of the best investment cases sitting untouched in the country's own books. The only question left is who moves first to claim it.
The writer is a Climate Change and Green Economy SpecialistTop of Form
jkab75@yahoo.co.uk
This is not a uniquely Ugandan story. The Horn of Africa spent much of the last decade lurching between drought and flood, and Kenya paid in lives and displaced families when the rains finally returned too fast for hardened ground to absorb. Uganda has more notice than Kenya had.
None of the investment case above replaces emergency response. When people are hungry or displaced, help cannot wait, and no insurance payout or carbon credit changes that. But relief alone is a cost that repeats forever, while the right investment keeps paying for itself. Take a single valley tank built in a drought-hit district: built once, it cuts the relief trucks needed every dry season, and replanting the surrounding land can start earning carbon credit income within a few years too. One investment, two returns, instead of a relief bill that returns every year. Each emergency should tell us where to invest next, not simply what to pay for this time.
Uganda paid this bill once, in full view of the Auditor General: sh373 billion in a single year, drought or flood, take your pick. Spent early instead of late, that same shilling saves roughly fifteen times its value. That is not a climate slogan. It is one of the best investment cases sitting untouched in the country's own books. The only question left is who moves first to claim it.
The writer is a Climate Change and Green Economy SpecialistTop of Form
jkab75@yahoo.co.uk