The need to ensure there is food in every home, more money in more pockets, jobs for our youths, and a globally competitive economy is cardinal. These are priorities already eloquently captured in the vision 2040 and the Uganda National Development Plans 3 ,It is with these thoughts, that Uganda is developing theclimate action market incentives guide. A guide to ensure benchmarks offered by UNBS address the opportunities and threats presented by climate change.

The seriousness of climate change to Uganda is clear for all. While Uganda contributes between 0.02 – 0.10% of global emissions, a negligible amount by all accounts, it stands out for its vulnerability. Uganda is rated as highly vulnerable, with a low readiness. The country is ranked the 15th most vulnerable and 49th least ready country. Nowhere are these impacts more profound than in the economic front. Between 2 – 4% of Uganda’s GDP is depleted each year because of climate change. Without remedial actions, Uganda is set to lose up to $5 billion per year in the next 10 years. In the agriculture sector, which up to 70% of the population depends on, increasing extreme events are costing the sector over $40 million in crop damage alone. On average, 800,000 ha of crops are destroyed each year by climate change related effects.

This happens in a sector that creates livelihoods for 79% of households. Statistics show that for every three Ugandans lifted out of poverty, two fall back. In addition, youth account for 60% of the unemployed and 700,000 young people join the labour market every year. These sobering realities of the threat of climate change to Uganda’s economy made clear, that unless Uganda climate proof productive systems, then the losses would only continue. And the role of standards benchmarks comes into focus.

Every sector and department of the economy engages to ultimately safeguard and enhance the economic bottom line of a country. With the clear threat of climate change on Uganda’s economy, two fundamental questions are raised.. The first was, how can Uganda build climate resilience? The second was, given the climate emergency, what is the shortest route to significantly climate proof productivity of Uganda’s economy? And the third was, what statutory mechanism, could be used, to ensure climate proofing solutions, can be infused into all sectors of the economy? To the first question, the answer was by accelerating socioeconomic growth. Uganda as the rest of the continent is a negligible emitter. The primary source of vulnerability is the inability of communities to afford alternative goods and services they need to buffer against the worse of the changing climate.

For example, East Africa is battling the worst locust attack in 70 years – as a result of climate change. Where extreme rainfall – as high as 400% more rains in October – December last year, created conducive environment for exponential breeding of these insects. The level of devastation these insects are capable of is unbelievable. Just imagine, in a region where nearly 20 million people already face high food insecurity, one large swarm of these insects can destroy cropland, the size of 250 football fields. Just one swarm. Without the ability of these communities to afford to harvest at the earliest warning of an attack, and preserve their harvest, they will simply starve. Without the ability of these communities to afford to buy food when their farms are attacked, they will starve. This lay bare, the need for thriving pockets to build real resilience in our communities.

To the second question, the answer is by targeting sectors that hold three distinctive qualities - economically inclusive; sectors in which Uganda holds a comparative advantage; and sectors which can ensure Uganda drives both socioeconomic priorities and climate aims simultaneously. Accordingly, triangulating Uganda’s climate and socioeconomic priorities, as captured in the NDCs, the vision 2040, and its derivative – the 3rd, National Development Plan, leads to two key sectors – clean energy and sustainable agriculture.

To the third question, the UNBS is the best placed operational agency, that can infuse sector-wide climate proofing. This is because it holds the statutory mandate of guiding actors, on acceptable standards and approaches for productive, enterprise actions in every sector of the economy. It is such productive actions that are the fabric of the economy. Hence climate proofing them amounts to climate-proofing the economy.

Studies show that commercialisation of the cassava value chain, has potential to recoup up to $300million in import substitution with wheat. Cassava is the second most important staple crop in Uganda farmed by over 70% of the population – making it economically inclusive. Adding value to this – through leveraging accessible technologies like solar dryers - is recorded as capable of increasing incomes by 50 – 80% at the farm gate level. Beyond the farm-gate, solar- dryer powered value addition is an opportunity to increase production of quality value added products like cassava flour up to 200times.

Value addition is recorded capable of creating livelihoods for over 6 million of Uganda’s youth under 25years, who can tap income opportunities through creating market, supply and production opportunities along the value chain. It is an opportunity to enhance profitability across various confectionary enterprises. For example, biscuit manufacturers in Uganda can save over $130,000 each year by substituting 35% of wheat flour with cassava flour. Rural bakeries, that consume about 2/3 of wheat in Uganda, can reduce raw material costs by 25%, by substituting wheat flour with high quality cassava flour. All these socioeconomic benefits are realised along climate resilient benefit. Where cassava being a resilient crop, has the lowest failure risk under harsh climate – just 8% - compared to the nearest challenges which is at 20%.

Investing to maximise the cassava value chain therefore offers an opportunity for the country to accelerate realisation of its socioeconomic aims while meeting its climate objectives. The Climate Action Market Incentive guide serves to leverage these exact opportunities. But to operationalise it, calls for a systems approach. Where operational level enterprise actions that drive this paradigm, are leveraged to provide much needed empirical data. Then this data is feedback as practical evidence to coherently recalibrate policies across key sectors – including planning & finance, agriculture, environment, among others. All towards ensuring these polices provide coherent incentives packages, that will catalyse more operational level investments in impactful enterprises that will drive Uganda’s climate and socioeconomic priorities.

The decentralisation of solar dryers to power preservation and primary processing of cassava into varied products is the key ground action Uganda is banking on. Accordingly, youth are being structurally guided and mentored under the EBAFOSA Uganda incubation structure to develop and continuously improve solar dryer designs that are applicable to the current user base – the farmers. Through a series of iterations, they have developed solar dryers proving to be 48times faster at drying raw cassava.

Read more from the attached publication.

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