BY SAMUEL NABWIISO
KAMPALA, UGANDA- Uganda has released its strategy to deliver on commitments under the Paris Agreement, in a blueprint known as the Uganda Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) Partnership Plan which aims at combating climate change.
Building off progress already made through Uganda’s existing climate plans and policies, the country’s NDC under the Paris Agreement captures the country’s ambitions for a sustainable future.
Through the Partnership Plan, Uganda is raising its ambition by setting the timeline to achieve several NDC actions sooner. Uganda seeks to mainstream climate resilience across sectors and develop early warning systems and robust monitoring systems by 2020, much earlier than originally planned.
In its NDC, Uganda puts strong emphasis on adaptation actions, to ensure all people and communities are resilient to climate impacts. To reduce its impact on climate change, Uganda has committed to reducing its emissions by 22 percent by 2030, with actions focused in energy, forestry, and wetlands.
In order to Implement the NCD , Government of Uganda will collaborate with the development partners to ensure that resources are Available to enable the various government agencies Implements the Action Plan’s
Launching the Country’s Master Plan in Kampala recently the first Deputy Prime Minister General Moses Ali assured Development Partners that Government of Uganda is committed to ensure that climate change is mitigated due to its devastating impacts to the country’s economy.
“We shall ensure that all the action plans in the NCD are implemented. What we need as Government is the strong collaboration between Government and the Development partners .The strong relationship will enable government to Mobilize resources to fund the various action in the NCD master plan,” said Ali.
To ensure that the objectives of the master plan is achieved, the government has come up with five priority areas for Uganda identified in its NDC Partnership Plan and these are: strengthened operational and gender-responsive policy and institutional frameworks for the effective governance of climate change.
The second priority areas are on increased climate financing for planning and budgeting on the national and local levels. Others are effective and institutionalized measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems to monitor greenhouse gas emissions and gender-responsive adaptation measures;
On addition that the government will also focus on Strengthened capacity of government officials, civil society, the private sector and academia to effectively integrate NDC and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) commitments with a gender lens into existing and future programs; and accelerated project financing for NDC implementation.
To deliver on these priorities, the plan identifies 49 activities for the next three years, including enacting a legal framework for climate action; developing a project pipeline of investment-ready projects for funding across priority sectors; establishing and strengthening national climate change funding mechanisms; modeling national temperature and precipitation and extreme event scenarios; and developing a national greenhouse gas inventory system.
Uganda’s commissioner in charge of climate change Chebet Maikut said Uganda recognizes the importance of mitigating climate change Uganda Climate Change
“Uganda recognizes the importance of fulfilling its commitments under the Paris Agreement, while at the same time welcoming the support of development partners in pushing Uganda’s climate agenda forward. To this end, to the development partners and the NDC Partnership that have pledged support to Uganda’s climate ambitions – I thank you!” he said.
To date, a number of implementing partners, both from inside and outside the NDC Partnership, have already pledged support to Uganda and these are the Governments of Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Austria; the European Union; United Nations Climate Change (UNFCCC); United Nations Development Program (UNDP); the African Development Bank; the World Bank;
At the Launch of the master plan UNPD pledged to support the governments to Implement projects that are crucial in mitigating climate change some of the projects to be supported include construction of institutional improved cook stoves for 75% of schools. This investment is expected to reduce the volume of wood currently used by 50%-saving trees and forests as carbon sinks.
The UNDP country representative to Uganda Ms. Rosa Malango also disclosed that UNDP will also focus in supporting integrated waste management and biogas production for energy with financing from Global Environment Facility.
In the Agriculture sector UNDP will support Uganda to scale up climate smart agriculture in eastern Uganda with support from the European Union (EU) through Common Markets for Eastern and Southern Africa among other Intervention’s.
“I am therefore pleased to confirm that through these initiatives and others under development, UNDP pledges $32,819,689 for the period of 2018/2020 to support efforts towards achieving our Nationally Determined Contributions,” she said.
