Last mile delivery of climate adaptation in Uganda, the need to integrate and decentralize climate adaptation planning and implementation processes

ABSTRACT

Millions of people in Uganda are in need of urgent climate adaptation. The current central government-led top-down projects are inefficient and ineffective. These projects financed by multi-lateral global climate funds have with limited impact at community level. The Local Climate Living Adaptation facility (LoCAL) through its Performance-Based Climate Resilience Grants to local governments is much more efficient and effective. True last mile delivery of climate adaptation can be accomplished through the bottom-up District Development Planning process by assessing climate issues and capturing adaptation needs in village proposal sheets and turn them into Village Climate Adaptation Plans. To be able to rapidly provide locally led adaptation, systematically and continuously to the millions of people in need, integration of the three delivery mechanisms is proposed, where the millions of climate finance raised by the central government are channelled to district level as Performance-Based Climate Resilient Grants based on the adaptation needs captured in Village Climate Adaptation Plans.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support from GIZ Uganda for financing this study and the district of Adjumani for their collaboration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://www.adaptation-fund.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/AFB.B.35.36.5-Endorsement-of-principles-of-locally-led-adaptation-action-by-the-AF.pdf

2 https://gca.org/programs/locally-led-adaptation

3 https://www.wri.org/initiatives/locally-led-adaptation/principles-locally-led-adaptation

4 Project Preparation Facility | Green Climate Fund

5 https://budget.finance.go.ug

6 Uganda Bureau of Statistics (ubos.org)

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

Notes on contributors

Miguel E. Leal

Miguel E. Leal has worked in climate change for over 25 years from locating Pleistocene forest refugia to developing green taxonomies, providing a mix of nature-based and technological climate mitigation and adaptation solutions to rural and urban communities through public and private sector delivery mechanisms.

Claudia Heinze

Claudia Heinze has engaged over 10 years with public and private sector actors to drive sustainable development addressing sustainability related challenges and facilitating the implementation of programs that improving the bottom line of communities and their access to services to increase their well-being.