Tororo to host World Habitat Day

By Raymond Baguma

The ministry of urban development will  on Monday launch a slum upgrade project in Kasooli, Tororo Municipality, to coincide with celebrations of the World Habitat Day.

The World Habitat day national celebrations will take place on October 7 in Tororo district. Rosemary Najjemba, the minister of state for urban development said the day will be marked at the Tororo Police Children Primary School with a public rally, an exhibition, as well as a tree planting exercise.

Najjemba said that the slum upgrade project in Tororo is in partnership with DFCU Bank in order to facilitate low income earners have access to affordable decent housing.

She also said that a national slum upgrading strategy is in place to guide stakeholders in improving the conditions of living for people living in slums and informal settlements. Also, government is implementing a programme for transforming of settlements for the urban poor. This programme is covering five municipalities of Arua, Jinja, Kabale, Mbale, and Mbarara.

Addressing journalists at Media Centre, Najjemba said that this year’s World Habitat day will be held under the theme, “Urban Mobility,” which was selected to reflect on the need for improved urban transport systems.

“Efficient mobility of people and goods is essential to the functioning of our towns as they expand.

Accessible towns encourage a shift towards more sustainable modes of transportation and draw more and more travelers out of cars and onto trains and buses that transport large numbers of passengers including non-motorised modes,” said Najjemba.

She said that with Uganda’s rising population, high rate of urbanization, and increase of motorized vehicles on Ugandan roads, urban infrastructure investments are not increasing correspondingly, which is undermining the efficiency of urban transport.

“The number of motorized vehicles in Uganda has increased without corresponding increase in road capacity and traffic management. There is need to focus on developing mass public transport, integrating the road, railway, water, and air transport modes as well as promoting the use of other non-motorized transport modes,” she said.

She said that Government is in the process of preparing a comprehensive physical development plan for the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area (GKMA), and has engaged consultants to plan for introduction of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Kampala to improve mobility. E