Adaptive and Inclusive Watershed Management: Assessing policy and institutional support in Uganda

This report explores existing institutional linkages between gender, water and climate change in Uganda.

Climate change is affecting water quantity and quality in Uganda and is an emerging major threat to health and well-being in the country. In addition to climate change impacts, a rapid population growth rate is anticipated to sharply increase demands for water and create challenges for the country in achieving its development goals.

At the same time women who are the main users of water for household and small-scale agriculture, have limited access to resources - land, credit, education, control over household income - needed to effectively adapt to climate change impacts and are affected the most when water catchments are degraded.

Responding to these challenges, Uganda is showing leadership in its policy and institutional systems in relation to climate and gender mainstreaming in water management. A number of policies and institutions consider gender equality and climate change in planning, budgeting and monitoring activities at various levels.

This research is the result of a desk review of policies, plans and strategies and interviews with key informants from Uganda’s water sector institutions and institutions working on issues of gender and climate change. These included officials involved in gender mainstreaming from the Ministry of Water and Environment, and experts involved at local, national and international level planning on these issues.

See our similar analysis on Kenya.