.  

MINISTER BETTY AMONGI CALLS ON DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS TO FINANCE CITIES, AND URBAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN UGANDA     

NEW YORK – The Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Betty Amongi has called on the development partners to bankroll the growth of cities and urban local governments in the country to accelerate economic growth.

Presenting a paper on 12th Feb 2025 at the United Nations meeting on the Fourth International Conference on financing for development (FfD4) in New York, a case for accelerating investment in urban development, minister Amongi said Globally, cities are homes to over half of the World’s population and remain essential hubs for accessing critical services such as water, sanitation, transportation, infrastructure and livelihood.     

 Uganda has cities such as Port Fortal, Mbarara, Lira, Arua, Masaka, Gulu, Jinja, Kabale, Mbale, Soroti, Hoima, and Entebbe among others.             

She noted that Africa remains the Continent contributing to the world’s high population, with 600 million people living in urban areas and 1.5 billion expected to move to urban centers by 2050.

 Amongi told the participants that in Uganda, urbanisation is increasing by 5.7% annually and the cities including her city Lira are driving economic growth, innovation, offering opportunities, wealth creation and attracting investments.

She called on international financial global architecture to design mechanisms of financing sustainable urbanisation by leveraging urban actors to deploy innovative funding models that support physical urban infrastructure, housing, garbage recycling, street lighting and financing SMEs that employ vulnerable groups like women, youth and PWDs.

She shared her extensive experiences in negotiating on behalf of Uganda concessional funding for urban infrastructure in Uganda while Minister of Lands, housing and urban development, and for Kampala Capital City and Metropolitan Affairs, which enabled the World Bank to offer financing to Uganda support to municipal infrastructure development (USMID) and Greater Kampala infrastructure development project (GKMA-WB) which has supported eleven cities and several Municipalities that have improved their infrastructure.

Amongi called for global investments in cities, strengthening their regulatory and governance structures, and offering technical support to cities to enable them to raise local revenues to drive sustainable urbanisation and tackle the compounding crises faced by urban areas.

The UN Conference is ongoing and will end on Friday, 14^th February 2025.