By Felix Oketcho
Kampala: Uganda in collaboration with European Union last week launched the National Green Industrial database.
Greening Uganda’s Urbanisation and Industrialisation is a three years project funded by European Union and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI).
The project aims to promote sustainable development and inclusive green growth in Uganda by focusing on green city development, green industrialisation, efficient waste management and green growth integration into planning and budgeting.
According to Dagmar Zwebe-Country Representative GGGI, the national green industrial database is aligned with the green manufacturing strategy and is set to implement the partial recommendation of the eco-industrial policy guides.
“In line with Uganda’s major objective to mainstream green growth in government programmes, the launch of the dashboard comes at an opportune time. Uganda is prioritising green growth to help implement the national development plan iii and the Uganda green growth development strategy. This will create a strong, resilient and competitive industrial base,” Zwebe said.
She made the remarks at this year’s industrialisation day celebrations held under the theme: Sustainable industrialisation for inclusive growth, wealth creation and employment.
On behalf of the Government, David Bahati-State Minister for Trade lauded the project finance saying it will go a long way to speeding investment programmes in the country.
“The database will allow for online registration by new investors in the industrial sector. It will capture live data, process and distribute it to deliver visualisation and analytics to enable meaningful decisions to be made. The database also has the potential to issue provisional e-certificates to prospective industrialists that meet green growth criteria. Early on, it will provide a platform for effective data management to allow timely access to industrialist data,” Bahati explained.
According to Bahati National Development Plan (NDPIII) identified industrialisation and urbanisation among the key components to be harnessed to achieve the desired economic transformation and development by 2040.
Stuart Mwesigwa Uganda Manufacturers Association steering member welcomed the project but asked implementers to incorporate them as key stakeholders in the project implementation process.
Uganda’s Industrialisation
The industrial sector in Uganda consists of construction, mining and quarrying, formal manufacturing, informal manufacturing, electricity supply, and water supply.
The sector has grown with industry contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rising from 11% in 1989/1990 to 27.1% in 2018/2019.
The Government of Uganda with technical support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched a new industrial policy to spur industrial development and economic transformation in 2020.
The National Industrial Policy (NIP) 2020 is a review of the 2008 policy and places more emphasis onAgro-Industries, Extractive Industries and Knowledge-based Industries to provide a framework for Uganda’s industrialisation, employment and wealth creation.
Uganda’s quest for industrialisation is highlighted in Vision 2040 and the third National Development Plan (NDP III), which are Uganda’s medium and longer-term plans that prioritise industrialization as a key driver for Uganda’s prosperity. The overriding theme of NDP III is, “Sustainable Industrialisation for Inclusive Growth, Employment and Sustainable Wealth Creation.”
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, manufacturing is currently the largest component of the industry sector, contributing 57.2% of the sector output in 2018/2019. The number of manufacturing enterprises has grown from about 83 in 1986 to 5200 in June 2020.
The goal of the National Industrial Policy 2020 is to double the manufacturing value-added as a percentage of GDP from 8.3% in 2018.19 to 16% in 2029/30 and increase industry sector contribution to GDP from 27.1 2018/19 to 31.7% in the next ten years.
