Uganda’s cities are key drivers of economic development and it is therefore crucial for urban centres and municipalities to mainstream migration issues in sustainable development planning.
The presence of large numbers of refugees has placed enormous pressure and overwhelming demands on the stretched capacities and resources of the State and District Local Governments that are on the front line of the country’s refugee response. Specifically, the Municipal Council of Nebbi, Yumbe Town Council and the NGO Urban Afrikanischer Traum (Uganda), home to 60% of refugees and asylum seekers in the area, wished to improve the current capacity and institutional set up on migration in the area of local planning and policies and to this avail requested support from the Migration EU eXpertise Initiative (MIEUX+), funded by the European Union and implemented by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development.
The project is strengthening institutional capacity of Yumbe and Nebbi municipalities to formulate and implement policies, programmes and projects, to achieve enhanced resilience of refugees and host populations, to reduce vulnerability of refugees and host populations, and to reduce tensions at community level.
Through a series of activities including a comprehensive assessment on the capacities of municipalities, internal systems and processes of the districts to provide the requisite remedial measures and improve specific institutional capacities, and ensure enhanced performance, the Town Councils will acquire new competences in mainstreaming migration into local development planning. These assessments are conducted by a team of experts from Finland and Sweden as well as local NGO Afrikanischer Traum and Makerere University. Complementarities with ongoing projects from UNDP, Cities Alliance, as well as social and gender aspects are being included to draft holistic and evidence-driven recommendations for the future local policy. These recommendations will be validated by a wide array of stakeholders, including government, academia, civil society and others.
This project is in line with national ambitions to develop according to principles of sustainability. After adopting the National Urban Policy in 2017, Ugandan central authorities have provided support to municipalities through specific programmes such as the “Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development” programme, already in its second phase, which seeks to improving planning, land tenure security and small infrastructure investments targeting refugees and host communities.