Safeguarding a Successful Just Transition in Uganda: Supporting Frameworks with Data and Governance

Uganda has developed a Just Transition Framework (JTF) to ensure that structural economic changes toward sustainability do not marginalize vulnerable groups, particularly informal workers and smallholder farmers. The framework is integrated into national planning cycles, including the Fourth National Development Plan (NDP IV), and emphasizes distributive, procedural, and restorative justice. While Uganda has established multi-stakeholder coordination and project screening tools, it faces significant barriers such as a lack of a national resettlement policy, high labor market informality (over 80%), and severe data gaps. The document calls for international grant-based support for labor economy modeling, the creation of a national resettlement policy, and programmatic finance for re-skilling and livelihood restoration.

• Uganda's Just Transition Framework (JTF) is anchored in the Fourth National Development Plan (NDP IV) and Vision 2040, focusing on three types of justice: distributive (fair sharing of costs and benefits), procedural (inclusive decision making), and restorative (remediation of environmental and social legacies).
• The government has operationalized just transition principles by embedding them into several planning and appraisal processes, including Programme Implementation Action Plans (PIAPs), Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs), and Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA).
• Uganda faces critical structural barriers to a just transition, most notably a labor market where more than 80% of workers are informal and a total absence of a national resettlement policy framework, which creates inconsistencies in compensation.
• The collapse of the Kilembe copper mines in Kasese serves as a national case study and warning of the risks of unmanaged transitions, specifically regarding job losses, regional economic decline, and long-term environmental degradation.
• To address existing gaps, Uganda requires international technical and financial assistance for developing labor economy models that capture informality, drafting a national resettlement policy, and establishing grant facilities for SME re-tooling and re-skilling.
• The document emphasizes that international support should be provided as grants and technical assistance rather than loans to avoid increasing Uganda's debt burdens.

APA

Lule, I. (2026). Safeguarding a Successful Just Transition in Uganda: Supporting Frameworks with Data and Governance. Climate Strategies. https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CECG-Uganda-Policy-Brief-1802.pdf

Chicago

Lule, Ivan. Safeguarding a Successful Just Transition in Uganda: Supporting Frameworks with Data and Governance. Climate Strategies, 2026. https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CECG-Uganda-Policy-Brief-1802.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Lule |first1=Ivan |title=Safeguarding a Successful Just Transition in Uganda: Supporting Frameworks with Data and Governance |publisher=Climate Strategies |date=2026 |url=https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CECG-Uganda-Policy-Brief-1802.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{lule2026safeguarding, author = {Lule, Ivan}, title = {{Safeguarding a Successful Just Transition in Uganda: Supporting Frameworks with Data and Governance}}, institution = {Climate Strategies}, year = {2026}, url = {https://climatestrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CECG-Uganda-Policy-Brief-1802.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }