On the 5th of April 2013, representatives from various stakeholder groups attended the official launch of the project “Building the Climate Resilience of Agriculture Value Chains in Uganda through Stakeholder Dialogues” in Kampala.

The overall purpose was to inform key stakeholders about the new pilot project, a collaboration between Makerere University, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTIC) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). The overall purpose of the proposed project is to initiate a process to mainstream climate risks into agricultural value chains in Uganda.

The launch enjoyed good media coverage with a 3-minute feature on Uganda Broadcasting Corporation's main news bulletin:

http://youtu.be/PsBpEkEi7-g

Makerere University provided an overview of the project and the UNDP facilitated question‐and‐answer session. Several key messages emerged. Climate change will have cross-sectoral impacts on Uganda, especially affecting agricultural trade. This holds significant consequences for economic competitiveness and poverty reduction and poses a threat to achieving the national Vision 2035. Value chain development is a key tool to facilitate the growth of agricultural commodities and is a thematic area for intervention in the National Trade Sector Development Plan and a key objective of the Ministry of Agriculture's Development and Sector Investment Plan.  The project will use the coffee value chain as a pilot, because coffee continues to provide the biggest share of total export revenue for the country and high fluctuation in past coffee production is largely attributed to climate variability (in combination with other factors such as reduced soil fertility and mismanagement).

Participants also highlighted several suggestions to steer project focus: The project should build on existing research and avoid duplication; it should be rigorous in its analysis of multiple climatic and non-climatic drivers of change; and emphasis must be laid on concrete, implementable actions.

For more information on this CDKN project, visit the project page.