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In November 2023, during the World Cities Day, China Observance in Shanghai, China, Kampala won the inaugural Global Award for Sustainable Development in Cities.

In the run-up to the victory, however, many social media sceptics, who are all too familiar with Kampala’s resilience difficulties such as inadequate roads, a disorganised public transport system, and a scarcity of green and public spaces sought to cast doubt on the city’s chances of winning.

As they cast doubt, however, Dorothy Kisaka, the Executive Director of Kampala Capital City Authority, played optimist, on occasion using her X handle to encourage people to vote for Kampala, which won on account of its “Weyonje” initiative, which aims to improve sanitation and hygiene in vulnerable informal settlements across the city.

Other attributes published on the Shangaiaward.org website that ostensibly stood Kampala in good stead included significant progress made through actions based on innovative programmes in road safety and connectivity, urban air quality improvement, green financing, and renewable energy utilisation.

Kisaka believes Weyonje is without question, a good climate change adaptation initiative, which is a key driver in advancing Sustainable Goal 6, which aims to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

“Weyonje demonstrates that KCCA is steadily putting into execution the objectives of SDG 6,” Kisaka told New Vision.

In a recent Op-ed piece in New Vision, KCCA spokesperson Simon Kasyate said the Weyonje initiative had significantly reduced environmental pollution, leading to a substantial decrease in the improper discharge of waste in the city.

Need for partnerships

Dr Christine Nagawa, a lecturer at Makerere University's School of Forestry, Environmental and Geographical Sciences, says while implementing SDG 6 is not a bad concept, with only 5 years till 2030, KCCA should focus its efforts on attaining the urban SDG or SDG 11.

Dr Christine Nagawa, a lecturer at Makerere University's School of Forestry, Environmental and Geographical Sciences. (Credit: Makerere University)

“To successfully implement the new Urban Agenda and SDG 11, which calls for the creation of inclusive, safe, and sustainable cities and human settlements, reducing per capita negative environmental impacts, particularly air quality and waste management, and ensuring safe, inclusive, and common access to green and sustainable spaces, collaborative partnerships with public and private sector players are needed.”

“The need for those partnerships is reinforced by recent assessments of Uganda’s progress towards the Urban SDG, which have not made for interesting reading,” says Nagawa.

The 2023 United Nations Sustainable Development Report, which discussed urgent areas for action to accelerate progress in the remaining years to 2030, including the critical need for UN member states to adopt an SDG stimulus, for instance, indicated that Uganda had stagnated and faced major challenges in its pursuit of SDG 11.

The report indicated for instance that access to improved piped water sources and satisfaction with public transport were decreasing.

Kampala far from resilient, despite the laurels

Many experts in urban resilience concur that Kampala, on the whole, is still far from resilient.

“Kampala, in general, still has major resilience challenges. If we are talking floods, on a scale of one to ten, its resilience hovers around five, and it will remain low as long as city drainage systems are clogged often with discarded plastic waste and other types of garbage,” says Simon Arapada, a researcher in urban resilience and climate change adaptation.

“The city’s flood resilience should have considerably improved by now on account of the launch in 2015 of what was touted as an effective Drainage Master Plan, but implementation has invariably been a challenge.”

Representatives of the five winning cities presented with the Shanghai Award. (Courtesy photo)

The Master Plan recommended structural measures such as the construction of new drainage systems in flood-prone areas and nonstructural measures such as improving solid waste management.

In a recent report titled “Reconciling multiple forms of flood risk knowledge and institutional responses: Insights from Kampala's flood management regime” published by Science Direct, Ugandan University of Manchester PhD scholar Denis Arinabo said Kampala's drainage improvement initiatives have not significantly improved the city’s flood risk management due to changing flood risk drivers, political interference, and uncoordinated flood risk interventions.

The positives

But there have been positives. In Bwaise, a low-lying and flood-prone district in Kawempe division, businesspeople like Christine Najjuma appreciate KCCA’s efforts.

Najjuma operates a small restaurant. In recent years, when it rained heavily, she stayed at home because her restaurant flooded, making it hard for her to work.

However, her business along with others that were constantly threatened by pluvial floods, had a new lease on life when the Lubigi and Nakamiro water drainage systems were built and completed in early 2022.

To all appearances, the drainage channels have, to an extent, reduced heavy rainfall runoffs and sewer overflows in Bwaise and surrounding areas.

Like in most flood-prone areas of Kampala, the runoffs and overflows often disrupted public transport and contributed to a rise in cases of typhoid fever and other water-borne illnesses like diarrhoea and dysentery.

Uneven or partial resilience

Bwaise and its surroundings, however, represent just a fraction of Kampala’s suburbs.

According to Arapada, Kampala and other Ugandan cities are only experiencing uneven or partial urban resilience (some areas are better organised than others), and they are making slow progress in developing sustainable urban infrastructure and resilience capacity—both of which are critical steps towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainability.

“As for Kampala's case, I like many others, take the other attributes that were cited by the Global Award for Sustainable Development in Cities group for its victory such as significant progress in innovative programmes in road safety and connectivity, urban air quality improvement, green financing, and renewable energy utilisation, with a grain of salt.”

Aside from floods, the other resilience challenges, Kampala continues to face that threaten its ability to function sustainably include wetland degradation (Nsooba-Lubigi and Kinawataka wetlands), worsening road safety, inadequate housing, urban sprawl, poor air quality, urban poverty, among others.

Housing and urban development expert Linus Mabonga says many of these resilience challenges are likely to get worse due to climate change, uncoordinated interventions, rapid urbanization, and the growing population.

“Unless Kampala and other Ugandan cities focus on implementing inclusive, resilient, and sustainable urban development policies and practices that prioritise access to basic services, affordable housing, efficient public transport, and green spaces, as well as policies that will protect natural flood buffers, among other things, they will remain largely dysfunctional, and its inhabitants, as in Kampala's case, will continue to be critical, as they were in the run-up to the city’s victory at the World Cities Day China Observance event in Shanghai last November.”

What’s needed to achieve SDG 11?

Vincent Byendaimira, the acting Director of physical planning and urban development at the lands ministry says Kampala and other Ugandan cities, can best achieve SDG 11 by committing to physical planning at all levels.

The country only passed the Physical Planners Registration Bill in 2022.

“There must be purposeful implementation of Physical Development Plans (PDPs), perhaps by way of conditional grants to Local Governments and direct central government funding of projects identified in planning processes. There must also be direct investment in housing to make it more available and affordable,” says Byendaimira, who believes that the $556 million (sh2.1 trillion) recently passed by Parliament, as well as the anticipated $750 million (sh2.8 trillion) meant to cover all municipalities and cities, will bring some changes to bear.

Joseph Walter Pade, a commissioner for urban development at the same ministry agrees stating that prioritization of physical planning and adequate climate-proof infrastructure development was key.

“There is a need to invest in green and resilient urban infrastructure and to prioritize integrated urban planning and slum and housing upgrades.”

During a recent session in which Parliament adopted national physical planning proposals by Judith Nabakooba, the Lands, Housing, and Urban Development Minister, MPs agreed that more effort was needed to implement physical planning policies in Uganda to address issues such as urban floods, sewage mismanagement, and the lack of numbered homes, among others.

Judith Nabakooba, the Lands, Housing, and Urban Development Minister. (Courtesy photo)

What KCCA is doing

In the run-up to the NAM Summit 2024, Kisaka disclosed that besides improving the city’s drainage systems, restoring green infrastructure such as wetlands and prevailing upon people to ensure proper waste disposal, KCCA was working on a 15km road improvement project to address flood-prone areas, with at least 10 roads fixed.

Through the Greater Kampala Integrated Floods Resilience Partnership Project, launched in 2022, KCCA is working on improving Kampala’s flood resilience through adopting nature-based solutions such as rainwater retention areas [rainwater harvesting].

Kasyate says KCCA is actively working on several green urbanisation projects aware that urban green infrastructure, such as trees, would help mitigate climate change and adapt to its effects by sequestering carbon.

“KCCA is not only maintaining Kampala’s greenbelt but also adding to it through tree planting. We plant over 6,000 trees annually and green on average two acres every year. We also maintain over 330 acres of public green spaces in the city. These measures will reduce climate risks like urban heat, as well as energy and water demand.”

Kasyate also said KCCA is also working to minimise encroachment, particularly in greenbelts, by ensuring that any new developments are reviewed following the Physical Planning Act, and structures that have been built and found to be encroaching are served notices before being demolished by the Development Control team.

In the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023, the UN posited that for countries to achieve Goal 11, efforts must focus on implementing inclusive, resilient and sustainable urban development policies and practices that prioritise access to basic services, affordable housing, efficient transportation and green spaces for all.

It noted that there was a pressing need for cities worldwide to integrate motorized transportation systems with walking and cycling through long-term sustainable urban mobility plans, targeted infrastructure investments and policy implementation.

Govt policy

At last year's UN Climate Change Conference, Judith Nabakooba, the Lands, Housing and Urban Development Minister said the government was committed to

strengthening the urban development agenda, urban financing, and urban greening as part of its policy.

Additional voices

Alton Kasole-Mayor-Jinja city

Jinja has launched various urban greening initiatives. We are planting several trees and grasses. We are also now partnering with the Moroccan government on environmental management (proper waste management) and Makerere University on the installation of air pollution detection units.

Cassim Namugali-Mbale city mayor

Besides discouraging deforestation, we are encouraging the planting of Bamboo trees along riverbanks for purposes of greening and preventing mud floods.

We have partnered with private collectors to help the city collect solid waste from business premises and residential areas while the council concentrates on maintaining the composite area.

A resilient city

A resilient city can withstand or absorb the impacts of hazards, shocks, and stressors through adaptation or transformation, hence ensuring sustainable urban development.

About the Global Award for Sustainable Development in Cities

Established in 2022 by the government of Shanghai in collaboration with UN-Habitat, the Global Award for Sustainable Development in Cities honours outstanding progress and accomplishments made by cities and municipalities worldwide in executing the 2030 Agenda, which is a global call to action for the eradication of poverty, adaptation to climate change, gender equality, accessible energy, and sustainable urban development in cities. The other winning cities of the 2023 first cycle of the inaugural Global Award for Sustainable Development in Cities were Brisbane, Australia; Fuzhou, China; George Town, Malaysia; and Salvador, Brazil.