5. Institutional challenges of climate change

Uganda is a country located in East-Central Africa, that is constantly being affected by climate change. 

Uganda is rich in natural resources, and has relatively fertile soil, biodiversity, rich vegetation and significant water resources; about 18 per cent of the country’s surface area is comprised of water bodies and swamps (OneWorld, 2009).

Thus, making Uganda very prone to the effects of climate change.

It is known that policies are needed to provide a supportive environment that guides and helps countries adapt to climate change. Yet in some countries it is still not widely acknowledged. These are all part of institutional challenges regarding climate change.

Uganda has made immense progress in the last decade towards building governance systems for climate change. This is because of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, to urge and help developed countries to adapt to climate change (UNFCCC, 2011). Uganda was one of the first countries to sign up for this framework and was fully dedicated to adapting to climate change. 

Because of this Framework the Government of Uganda set up multiple national policies to adapt to climate change, from water and sanitation to land development planning. This was the start of a national policy that would lead to many changes in the country. 

In 2015, the National Climate Change Policy was developed and approved in April, the objective was to ensure that all stakeholders address climate change impacts and their causes through appropriate measures, while promoting sustainable development and a green economy (Government of Uganda, 2015). 

Despite considerable progress made in developing a governance system for climate change adaptation, findings from research institutes indicate that implementation is often constrained by lack of harmonized sectoral planning (Environmental Science and Policy, 2016). Sectoral planning means a plan for specific geographic areas and not for a whole country. This will lead to differences and misunderstandings. 

Causes for these institutional challenges are (Environmental Science and Policy, 2016): 

• Different coordination of stakeholders: there are different stakeholders on different levels, from government officials to NGO’s and from national to local policies.
• Limited technical capacity: stakeholders may lack certain skills to enable long-term planning.
• Finances: there may be not enough money to fund certain policies or projects.
• Political interference: with every government party there are different opinions, especially on climate change. So not everyone would be cooperating to adapt to climate change.