By Ezaruku Draku Franklin

A new report by Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment has painted a grim picture of Uganda’s post Covid-19 recovery plan, noting that while the country focused on health and economic recovery, climate change issues have been relegated and meagre funds allocated to green recovery.

The report titled “Uganda’s Post-COVID Recovery Strategy & NDC Implementation” says Uganda adopted a two-fold response to COVID-19 of dealing with the emergency of the pandemic and addressing the short- to medium-term recovery of the economy.

Attention, according to the report was paid to addressing health-related expenditures, restoring household incomes and safeguarding jobs, providing emergency social protection and providing tax relief to businesses and reigniting the business community

“The main focus of the recovery strategy was strengthening health care systems and attaining economic goals indicating that the opportunities have largely not been tapped. Environmental and Climate issues were relegated to the back burner. Uganda’s fiscal response, in part targeted at accelerating the development of industrial and business parks whose climate effects are projected to be negative and the recovery measures did not focus on green issues,” the report says.

“For instance, the total allocation for the programme for FY 2020/21 was Shs804.24 billion ($219.09 million) against the NDP III annual requirement of Shs895.14 billion ($243.87 million) representing 90% of funding. Climate change and the environment got the minimum allocation despite their major contribution to the attainment of programme goals and objectives,” the report adds.

While presenting the report on Tuesday in Kampala, Ronald Kaggwa, the lead researcher said the reliance on heavy borrowing has direct and indirect negative effects on the country’s transition to a green economy. He said the current and future debt-servicing costs are likely to undermine investment in green economic recovery and transition.

“Climate action during and after the pandemic is likely to continue to be side-lined in terms of resource allocation, and any progress on climate change will depend on the policy choices adopted for economic recovery,” he said.

The disasters

Uganda has faced a triple crisis in recent times including Covi-19, locusts invasion and floods, highlighting the interface between economic growth and climate change.

The water levels of Lake Victoria reached their highest point in 120 years, displacing thousands of people. Figures in 2019 indicated that 65,250 people were displaced and roads, hospitals, schools and bridges destroyed in the process.

These disasters affected the economy, which decelerated to its slowest pace in three decades, from a projected growth of 6% to 3% in FY 2019/20

“To cope with the multiple crises amid reduced economic activity and constrained household incomes, many people turned to the already strained natural resources,” the report states.

“Many lessons and opportunities also resulted from the intersecting crises of the pandemic and climate-related disasters. It is now apparent that crises do not happen in siloes and therefore cannot be dealt with singly. It is also clear that this is an opportunity to incorporate resilience into the heart of macroeconomic policy and so advance a genuinely green and resilient economy,” the report adds.

Uganda’s nationally determine content (NDC) commitments and their implementation

The report says although its contribution to global emissions is estimated at only about 0.0002%, Uganda in 2015 committed to reduce its emissions by 22% by 2030 compared to the business-as-usual scenario, which however was subject to its receiving international support (70%) to complement domestic efforts (30%)

The NDC highlighted adaptation as the priority response to climate change to reduce vulnerability in agriculture, forestry, infrastructure, water, energy, health and disaster risk management. It also defined a series of policies and measures in the energy supply, forestry and wetlands sectors

In 2018, Uganda became the first country in Africa to develop an NDC Partnership Plan. Since 2018, NDC partnership members committed $24 million to turn the plan into action.

The report however says since the country submitted its first NDC in 2015, the main climate change concerns have changed owing to several issues including the changing policy and institutional landscape. It says the post-COVID-19 updated NDC is promising greater ambition through a higher emission reduction target of 24.7% below the BAU trajectory by 2030, up from 22%, while the mitigation component has also been broadened through addition of transport, waste and industrial processes and product use.

The report says while, in the Business as usual scenario, emissions in 2030 are projected to be 77.3 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per year, in 2019 emissions were estimated at only 6.2 million tonnes, falling to 5.4 million tonnes in 2020 owing to COVID-19.

Funding

While the Ministry of Water and Environment estimates the total cost of implementing adaptation, mitigation, coordination, monitoring, and reporting of the updated NDC is $28.1 billion (103.4 trillion,) the country commits to mobilize only $ 4.1 billion (Shs15.1 trillion) which is equivalent to 15% of the total cost of the updated NDC. This shows that the financial gap remains substantial.

The report says although Uganda’s is a natural resource-based economy, government expenditure on environment protection is very low compared to its contribution to the attainment of its development goals and that underfunding thus remains a major challenge.

According to themid-term review of the NDP II 2015/16–2019/20 the failure to achieve the plan’s targets was partly attributed to climate change, which had been integrated into development planning but not addressed via appropriate budgets.

“In light of the constrained public budget and reduced international finance flows, government is considering leveraging innovative climate financing instruments. These include; Green/sustainability bonds, blue bonds, blended finance, credit mechanisms, insurance microfinance, carbon markets and debt-for-nature swaps,” the report notes.

Policy recommendations

The report says the Nationally Determined Contents are a good entry point, as they present an opportunity to advance both economic growth and climate action. It asks government to integrate climate change response in key strategic policy frameworks, macroeconomic frameworksand country assistance frameworks as a means to green low carbon and resilient sustainable economic growth

The report also recommends regional cooperation and financing for COVID recovery strategies, which should be harmonized across East African Community member countries with their NDCs and regional climate policies.

“Leverage the mobilization potential of the NDC Partnershipto pool various international financial, technology, capacity-building and technical resources to support NDC implementation and ensure a climate change-responsive economic recovery, develop an action plan and regulations to guide the implementation of the provisions in the Climate Change Act. Leverage nature-based solutions to address climate change and pursue green growth and develop green fiscal, monetary tools and other macroeconomic policies,” the report recommends.

Dr Arthur Bainomugisha, the Executive Director of ACODE said the report presents the planners with an opportunity to integrate climate financing in the national budget to ensure that adequate funds are allocated to cater for natural resources sector which will be used to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change.

Government officials from the ministry of water and environment and their counterparts from the finance ministry and several civil society organisations all pledged to support the sector and ensure that environment and climate change issues are at the core of funding.