The climate of Uganda is already changing; the past 30 years have seen average temperature rise and future climate change has the potential to exacerbate the current impacts of climate in Uganda and to lead to new risks.

“The uncertainty of the projections makes it more challenging to design appropriate responses to adapt to future climate change risks, but this is not a reason for inaction,” says researcher Paul Watkiss in his background document ‘Enhancing Climate Change Outcomes in Development Programmes in Uganda’.

CDKN, together with the Netherlands Embassy in Kampala, hosted an Action Lab on the 13th and 14th of September 2016 to focus on two key issues affected by climate risks. These were:

1.        How to make dairy and livestock value chains more climate smart?
2.        How to strengthen the resilience of migrants to environmental shocks and climate change?

The Action Lab was attended by a range of stakeholders active in Uganda, including representatives from government, academic and research institutions, project implementing partners, civil society, development partners and private sector organisations. They agreed on a set of research questions to address identified gaps in these two areas. The questions were put out to tender, and two research projects were successfully conducted between December 2016 and May 2017:

1. What are the economic opportunities for entrepreneurs and companies to invest in climate change adaptation to enhance the resilience of Uganda’s livestock value chain, and are there trade-offs in these opportunities?

 Conducted by the Overseas Development Institute and Makerere University.

2. Identify successful Ugandan examples of scalable and sustainable climate smart interventions that can be used to increase resilience and lower emissions in the dairy value chain. What are the economic opportunities for entrepreneurs and companies to invest in climate change adaptation in Uganda’s dairy value chain?

Conducted by a consortium of organisations (SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, National Agricultural Research Organisation(NARO), Wageningen University, Mbarara University of Science and Technology and Institute for Sustainable Development).

The research focussed on informing future development programming for development-practitioners and policymakers in Uganda. Additionally, it served as a valuable learning resource for stakeholders in the delivery of climate-smart programmes in Uganda and across the region.

Project Outputs:

Research paper Livestock value chain report

Video The livestock value chain in Karamoja

Video How dairy farmers are mitigating and adapting to climate change