Uganda

"I acknowledge with thanks receipt of the report on 'Uganda's Fading Luster: Environmental Security in the Pearl of Africa'. I thank you for the various activities you have carried out in order to safeguard our environment and also to promote sustainability in the country.

This is also to assure you that the implications on land tenure, food production, energy and water issues which are required, will be recognized by the policy makers to pursue enduring peace and sustainable development. I further look forward to a continuous collaboration."

I thank you.

Hon. Maria Mutagamba
Minister of Water and Environment
Government of Uganda

Uganda’s Fading Luster: Environmental Security in the Pearl of Africa

• Executive Summary (March 2006, 36 pp.)
• Full Report (June 2006, 146 pp.)

FESS conducted its third pilot study in Uganda in March 2005. The field study in Uganda was preceded five months earlier by an international workshop entitled, "Assessing Environmental Security in Eastern Africa: Achieving Sustainable Development and Peace," which took place in Kampala, Uganda. The workshop and study were convened jointly by the Partnership for African Environmental Sustainability (PAES), headquartered in Kampala, and FESS. For the pilot case study of Uganda, a team of seven researchers from FESS, PAES, and Tulane Institute for Environmental Law and Policy conducted the field study and interviewed more than 60 individuals, including high-ranking government officials, elected representatives, civil servants, military personnel, policy experts, academics, civil society professionals, and private sector representatives. The field research was conducted in Kampala, Gulu district, and the southwestern area of the country.

The environmental security findings focus on the issues of food, energy, land, and water security in light of the country's dramatic changes during the last several decades. Three future scenarios are described in the report: the first suggests serious problems and the potential for a breakdown of stability and security; a second envisions pressing problems in Uganda worsening in sequences clustered so closely in time that they produce strongly negative synergies; and a third describes policy decisions leading to virtuous cycles that support sustainable development and contribute toward the goal of environmental security. Policy recommendations directed to the Government of Uganda, Ugandan civil society, the Ugandan private sector, and the Government of the United States outline measures to address the country's environmental security challenges.

Assessing Environmental Security: Achieving Sustainable Development and Peace

• Workshop Report (February 2005, 98 pp.)

Participants at the October 2004 "Assessing Environmental Security: Achieving Sustainable Development and Peace" conference in Kampala, Uganda.