Uganda Releases First NDC Partnership Plan for Climate Action in Africa
The Government of Uganda released its strategy to deliver on commitments under the Paris Agreement, in a blueprint known as the Uganda NDC Partnership Plan. Building off progress already made through Uganda’s existing climate plans and policies, the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement captures the country’s ambitions for a sustainable future. The Partnership Plan complements this vision, while also serving as an accelerator for action. The Plan identifies five priority areas set by the government for implementation of its NDC, and begins to connect those priorities to available partner and program resources from across the NDC Partnership and its network.
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. 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. The Plan also aims to create an enabling environment for the country’s NDC by elaborating and clarifying actions for transformative change as the country grows and develops into the future.
Key to achieving Uganda’s climate goals is effective coordination and prioritization as well as monitoring and reporting on its climate actions and response.
The five priority areas for Uganda identified in its NDC Partnership Plan are: strengthened operational and gender-responsive policy and institutional frameworks for the effective governance of climate change; increased climate financing for planning and budgeting on the national and local levels; effective and institutionalized measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems to monitor greenhouse gas emissions and gender-responsive adaptation measures; 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 Climate Change Department Commissioner Chebet Maikut said, “Uganda recognizes the importance of fulfilling its commitments under the UNFCCC and 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 added, “It’s through such partnerships that we can achieve and meaningfully contribute to the global climate ambition that we desperately require to save tomorrow’s climate today.”
The newly-approved NDC Partnership Plan serves as the basis for planning, coordination, resource mobilization and transparency on NDC implementation between the government and partners.