Nakawa Women Celebrate International Women’s Day, Task Gov’t To Address Climate Change Challenges

By Frank Kamuntu

Nakawa Women under their different umbrella organizations have today gathered at Nakawa Division headquarters to celebrate International Women’s Day.

International Women’s Day is a holiday celebrated annually in March as a focal point in the women’s rights movement. The day focuses on issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women.

The event that was graced by the Nakawa East Member of Parliament Hon. Balimwezo Ronald among other local leaders was organized by the Network for Active Citizens (NAC) among other partners like; One by One, International Rescue Committee, Shakira Girl Empowerment Uganda, Somero Education for Young People, Children Rights and Prevention Fund, Platform for Vendors Uganda, She Soars, Agalya Awamu, Restless Development.

Women at this event raised alarm over a couple of challenges affecting them, among them including early pregnancies, school dropouts and being sidelined in some government programs.

On there other hand, NAC used this opportunity to present its position paper on young people’s views on climate change, noting that more than half of the world population lives in the cities and around one billion in poor urban areas.

The growing rate of urbanization in Kampala has resulted into socio-economic, and environmental challenges such as pollution, solid waste mismanagement food insecurity and massive slums development (ACODE, 2020)2, worsened by increasing climate change risks such as floods and heat waves (KCCA, 2016), leading to the outbreak of diseases fueled by poor sanitation especially in Ghetto communities (NAC and CISO, 2021). In addition, the increased poverty, inequality, insufficient basic infrastructures such as toilets and poor service delivery (ACODE, 2020) have increased the vulnerability of Ghetto communities to the impacts of climate change,” reads NAC’s position paper signed by Peniel Rwendiere the Executive Director and Miria Balungi the Advocacy Manager.

The organization says climate change poses a serious threat to humanity and the environment through its impacts evidenced globally infringing on the already scarce resources in cities and municipalities.

”Both the rural and urban communities are experiencing longer droughts and erratic rains leading to increasing flooding affecting mobility, settlement and livelihood (KCCA, 2016). This is threatening the lives of millions of Ugandans, especially the at-risk youth population in the informal settlements characterized by slums commonly known as ghetto communities,” further reads NAC’s paper.  

Read Full Paper Below

Key issues

Inadequate Financial and technical support towards climate action; the Kampala Climate Change Action strategy, 2016 envisions transforming the threat of climate change into an opportunity for Kampala residents with a particular focus on Go Green Initiatives. However, there is limited prioritization of support towards similar actions under targeted development programmes (KCCA, 2019). For instance out of the 458 businesses supported under the Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP) in Kampala at a cost of UGX 4.421 billion , there was none on garbage collection and recycling initiative, charcoal briquettes and recycling training for ghetto youth yet these a critical climate actions that can foster proper management of waste in the city and among ghetto communities.

Inadequate waste management in Ghetto communities; this is as a result of the cost charged by garbage collecting companies on households due to privatization. According to the Kampala City Statistical Abstract, 2019, the total number of garbage collecting companies in Kampala was 55 in 2019 where HOMEKLIN (U) Limited had the highest number of trucks (40) followed by Nabugabo Up Deal Joint Venture with 23 trucks, despite the existence of these companies, the city especially ghetto communities are still grappling with waste management and disposal. This is because many of these companies are privately owned requiring a fee which some households cannot afford and hence end up mismanaging the waste leading to poor sanitation and health.

Lack of integration of climate actions targeting Ghetto communities in climate strategies and plans and their limited involvement in the implementation, the KCCA strategy does not define specific climate actions targeting the ghetto communities, which may lead to the limited involvement of such communities in the implementation of climate strategies by the Authority. This is also similar with the Kampala Capital City Strategic plan (2020-2025), which highlights that implementation of the Kampala Disaster Risk and Climate Change Resilience Strategy 2021 -2024/25 will be an integral part of Strategic Plan but silent about strategic actions in ghetto communities especially youth (KCCA, 2020).This is likely to affect tracking, reporting and accountability on climate actions as well as limit resource mobilization.

Limited Adaptive Capacity to climate impacts

Adaptation is referred to as the reduction of the impacts/ loses/ vulnerability and enhance resilience of communities and key infrastructure (like roads, drainages, electricity supply network), reduce the city’s vulnerability to charcoal, fuel, food and water supply shocks, energy security/ renewable energy (KCCA, 2016). The level of income among the community members affects the ability of households to adapt to climate change effects. The households with greater adaptive capacity manage more diverse livelihood portfolios as they have a more varied mix of on-farm and off-farm income sources compared to the counterparts with one or limited sources of income sources (NAC and CISU. 2021).

In light of the drawbacks to the Climate effect policy and action interventions, the youth from the ghetto with the support of the Network for Active Citizens (NAC) would like to provide the following six asks to KCCA so as to build their resilience to climate change risks and impacts;

1. KCCA should enhance the financial and technical support towards green initiatives; young people should be supported to carry out green initiatives such as urban farming, charcoal briquette making, garbage collection and recycling initiatives for proper waste management. This should be done through financial and technical support towards
2. trainings and procurement of relevant equipments/tools for use in undertaking green initiatives.
3. Up scaling successful community-based adaptation (CBA) initiatives, designed by or with vulnerable communities to ensure food security for households in informal setting including slums.
4. Development programmes in Kampala such as the Youth Livelihood Fund, Youth venture Capital Fund, Uganda Women’s Enterprise Programme and among others should priorities support of projects/businesses that a responsive towards climate action.
5. Dedicate a defined percentage budget towards addressing climate change challenges as opposed to the   allocations made annually under the different departments. Devote an adequate budget on construction and maintenance (MRO) towards resilient road network in the in the GKMA to ensure proper drainage facilities including culverts for flood management so as to promote the resilience of ghetto communities to floods.
6. KCCA should consider integration of ghetto communities and their specific climate actions in the updated climate change strategy for Kampala and strategic plan, and the roles and responsibilities of the young people in its implementation should be well defined.
7. KCCA should fast track implementation of the waste management plan supported by pollution studies and research to develop frameworks that reduce adverse per capita environmental impact of cities (air quality and waste management practices) through collaboration with pollution study centers as the Kampala US Mission (Embassy) and Makerere University to generate harmonize climate real time data to the Public.Conclusion The ghetto communities in Kampala are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts due to the limited adaptive capacity. The people in the ghetto communities are too poor to afford some of the adaptation strategies like construction of resilient urban infrastructure such as road networks with improved drainage systems, provision of clean water points, investment in basic latrines; conservational practices through tree planting, wetlands demarcation; alternative energy solutions as charcoal briquette making, re-use/recycling of waste and as well as influencing land-use planning for urban development including creation of green spaces and buffer zones, housing and settlement. It is such challenges that make it very critical for KCCA to adopt plans and strategies that particularly integrate the needs of the Ghetto communities in the fight against climate change impacts by mitigating climate risks and improve adaptation capacities through improved environmental management practices suitable for urban informal communities.”

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