Gov't seeks US$ 750 million for cities and municipalities

The government through the Ministry of lands is preparing the necessary documentation in a bid to obtain US$ 750 million to support Refugee Host Districts in Physical planning, land tenure security and small-scale infrastructure.

According to the Minister for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Judith Nabakooba, the move will commence after the mid-term review of the USMID-AF Program to support major projects including solid waste management in the cities and Municipalities.

“We intend to have a separate dedicated support program to the newly created cities that have emanated from the 10 USMID Municipalities. The support will focus on urban infrastructure development, physical planning and institutional strengthening. This will target an increased city population of about two and a half million.” she remarked.

Relatedly, the government desired to have continued support to the 12 current USMID Municipalities with intention of consolidating the achievements so far made and extend the support to the balance of 19 Non-USMID Municipalities in addition to continue to support towards completing the ongoing plans under USMID-AF.

She made the remarks during the Mid-Term review workshop of the USMID-AF Program taking stock of what has been done so far under and re-aligning it to ensure that it is still on track to achieve intended program goals.

“Therefore the USMID program was timely as it attempted to fill the gap of inadequate funding but also because it was conceived at a time when urbanization was increasing rapidly beyond our capacity to plan. Uganda is currently urbanizing at a rate of 18% and if deliberate strategies are not put in place to deal with it, our urban areas will end up into slums.” Nabakooba said.

Implementation of the USMID-AF started on 11th April 2019 and the start-up activities of the program went on well until the world was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic for two years leading to slow progression in almost all activities. However, upon opening of the economy, work has resumed, and all the Program cities and Municipalities now have infrastructure works ongoing.

USMID, through ARSDP, the Trust Fund facility and also CEDP interventions have been enablers to the development agenda by filling in the gaps created by the limited Government resource envelope.

Her submission came on the backdrop of limited funding by the government, since the creation of her Ministry in 2006 yet it generates over 70% of National GDP.

“This too applies to the refugee hosting districts where civil works have commenced in most and for others procurement of contractors is being done. We are positive that we shall complete all the planned infrastructure projects by program closure in December 2023,”according to Nabakooba.

Since the program's conception in 2013, the government remains with huge urban service delivery demands. While the program has caused upgrading and tarmacking of over 200 km of urban roads, this is less than 5% of the urban road network in the country; While support has been extended to solid waste management, waste collection in Municipalities is less than 40% of amounts generated; emergence of cities from Municipalities with areas increasing by over 700% while populations have increased by over 130%.