UNDP in Uganda - Cross Cutting Theme: Energy & Environment

Whereas Uganda is endowed with natural resources, current trends indicate persistent degradation of the country’s natural resources. Some of the current environment challenges include a declining soil fertility; deforestation (particularly outside protected areas), pasture degradation, decreasing fish stocks, water pollution caused by discharge from industries and domestic waste, among others.

1. Sustainable land and rangelands management »»

To address the worsening conditions of land resources in the rangelands, UNDP is supporting Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries to develop interventions which support communities to improve productivity of their land resources.

Current UNDP support also seeks to contribute towards sustainable land management to combat desertification and land degradation in Uganda. UNDP is also supporting selected local governments within the cattle corridor to mainstream environment and dry lands issues into their development planning and budgeting frameworks.

2. Mainstreaming environmental concerns into all policies, plans and programmes at all levels (national, sectoral, and community): »»

UNDP Uganda is in partnership with other agencies, including the following:

·UNDP Drylands Development Centre (UNDP DDC) to develop a programme for environmental mainstreaming in the cattle corridor districts of Uganda. This programme is being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) and the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) of the Government of Uganda, in collaboration with a number of selected cattle corridor districts (e.g. Sembabule District that has for the last two years implemented a pilot dry lands mainstreaming programme through a a participatory District Environment Action Planning {DEAP} )
UNEP/UNDP partnership programme on the Poverty and Environment Initiative which is supporting Government to mainstream environment into national planning strategies such as the PEAP and into local government planning programmes

3. Biodiversity conservation »»

UNDP is currently supporting Government of Uganda to promote programmes on biodiverisity conservation in the following areas, among others:

support to the Ministry of Water and Environment through the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in implementing a five year project aimed at supporting conservation of biodiversity in the Albertine Rift Forests of Uganda, including promotion of better management of forests on private land
a community wetlands conservation initiative to be linked to conservation/protected area systems that have hitherto not integrated wetland conservation within the conservation area programmes and boundaries

4. Climate change »»

UNDP is currently engaged in discussions to support Government of Uganda to access GEF resources to develop adaptation measures that respond to the identified priority interventions in Uganda’s National Adaptation Plan of Action (NAPA) to climate change. These initiatives are hoped to support the integration of climate change adaptation measures in the country’s agriculture sector policies and programmes.

To date, UNDP has supported Government of Uganda to implement actions which contribute to climate change mitigation. The most notable programmes supported by the UN system include the following:

through the UNDP GEF Small Grants Programme, UNDP is providing direct support to NGOs and civil society organizations to implement projects aimed at improved management of natural resources and tree planting at community level
UNDP with GEF funding is providing support to Government of Uganda to implement a project on Climate Change Enabling Activities involving building capacity for technology needs assessment, identification of technology transfer barriers and greenhouse gas inventory data gaps, and raising the level of awareness on climate change issues in Uganda, among others
opportunities to develop climate change mitigation and adaptation programmes are also being explored with various stakeholders

5. Management of chemicals and chemical wastes »»

In line with the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), to which Uganda is a signatory, UNDP is supporting a pilot project - the Strategic Approach on International Chemicals Management (SAICM), which seeks to establish a replicable methodology for the integration of sound management of chemicals in national development strategiesand programmes through MDG-based planning.

United Nations Development Programme
UGANDA

'a trusted partner, supporting Uganda to achieve the Millennium Development Goals'

United Nations Development ProgrammeUGANDA

'a trusted partner, supporting Uganda to achieve the Millennium Development Goals'

United Nations Development Programme
UGANDA