Programme Identification Mission To
Uganda
At the invitation of the Government
of Uganda to the Executive Director and reaffirmed through a letter from
the Minister of Works, Housing and Communications; UN-HABITAT fielded a
two-part programme identification mission to Uganda from 13-20 November
2002.
The mission which had a composite team from the Secure Tenure Campaign, Urban Governance Campaign, Safer Cities Programme and The Global Urban Observatory was coordinated by the Regional Office for Africa and the Arab States (ROAAS).
The first part of the mission, was the high level segment which comprised the Director of the Regional Office for Africa and the Arab States, Mr. Alioune Badiane, the Chief of Shelter Branch, Mr. Farouk Tebbal, and the Senior Human Settlements Advisor in charge of Uganda, Ms. Mariam Yunusa.
The team met with the Cabinet Ministers of Lands, Environment and Water; Local Government; Ministers of State for Works, Housing and Communications; Finance, Economic Development and Planning. They also met with the Town Clerk of Kampala City Council, and the Resident Representative of the UNDP.
The second segment of the mission covered three days during which officers from all the units represented held intensive consultations with a cross-section of actors and stakeholders including government at all levels, civil society, women's organisations, the private sector, and UNDP.
At the main consultation sessions, relevant officers made presentations on the Campaigns, the Safer Cities and the Urban Indicators Programmes. A special emphasis was placed on the joint launching of the Campaigns and how this will boost the quality and quantity of ongoing initiatives.
A particular note was made of the need to incorporate the Urban Indicators Programme into the mainstream of the launch and subsequent programme design for the purpose of monitoring the Habitat Agenda and Millennium Declaration Goal.
The mission resulted in a communiqué to be signed by the Government of Uganda, the UNDP and UN-HABITAT. The communiqué essentially affirms the endorsement of all parties to have a joint launch of the Campaigns in Uganda; to develop an urban component of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) with a view to securing essential funding support for human settlement development.
The communiqué also states that the resulting Plan of Action from the joint launch of the Campaigns would serve as the framework for identifying new priorities and scaling up ongoing innovations in local governance and secure tenure.
The campaigns will be launched with the participation of the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT and the President of the Republic of Uganda during the week of the World Habitat Day 2003.
The Government of Uganda and the UNDP have also invited UN-HABITAT to make proposal for the provision of shelter and basic services for IDPs and refugees of the on-going conflict in Northern Uganda. In-house consultations are currently ongoing with the DMP Unit.