Secondary cities programme in Uganda

The Government of Uganda (GoU) has made urban development a priority to achieve its development goals in the coming years. Uganda, which is currently one of the least urbanised countries in Africa, is experiencing accelerated urbanisation. To harness the vast opportunities and challenges arising from this urbanisation, the GoU launched a plan in 2020 to boost urbanisation by upgrading 15 municipalities to cities, 10 of which have already been validated. Until then, Kampala was the only city.

The GoU sought the support of the French Development Agency (AFD) to build a secondary cities programme, funded by the CiCliA facility, which aims to (i) develop a network of secondary cities at the national level to enable peer learning and experience sharing, (ii) select 3-5 cities and projects within these cities to be supported financially and technically by the programme, and (iii) implement capacity building activities at national and local levels to support the implementation of the projects in a cross-cutting manner.

Espelia won the two technical assistance contracts for the preparatory phase of the programme, the second in partnership with Groupe Huit & URTC.

1. Technical Assistance for the Co-Construction of a National Programme to enhance Urban Institutional and Infrastructure Development

The objective of this assignment is to support the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development (MoLHUD) to co-construct the Uganda Secondary Cities Programme with local stakeholders. In particular, this involves :

• Define and implement a Stakeholder Management Plan to ensure the participatory dimension of the programme and its ownership by the programme's stakeholders ;
• Conduct an analysis of the institutional and political framework of the secondary cities in Uganda in order to clarify the institutional modalities for the implementation of the programme ;
• Facilitate a national workshop for the co-construction of the programme implementation strategy ;
• Define the modalities (institutional, operational, financial) for the implementation of the programme ;
• Define the capacity building plan for the national and local actors of the programme.

2. Technical assistance to enhance preparatory phase of the secondary cities programme in Uganda

This mission aims to support the preparation of the programme through sectoral analyses, pre-feasibility and feasibility studies of projects, and the preparation of environmental and social safeguard policies. The precise content of this mission will depend on the needs identified in the cities and the programme implementation strategy. It will notably support the selection of cities and projects supported by the programme.