Strengthening Civic Engagement, Voice, Service Delivery, and Climate Justice for Improved Accountability in Uganda

Updated on: 2024-10-17 10:06:30

The project aims to strengthen civic engagement, voice, service delivery, and climate justice for improved accountability in Uganda.

This is a 4-year project that aims to strengthen civic engagement, voice, service delivery, and climate justice for improved accountability in Uganda. The project will thus enhance citizens’ participation in monitoring public expenditure and service delivery, strengthen policy, regulatory, and institutional capacity for climate justice, address concerns about climate most affected vulnerable communities, and empower youth, women, and other marginalized groups to meaningfully participate in decision-making processes.

Uganda’s socio-economic and political landscape presents a complex reality of progress and deficit in service delivery, accountability, and environmental management. While Uganda has registered an average annual growth of over 6% in the last 30 years, this progress is undermined by poor service delivery, poor public accountability, weak governance structures, and high poverty levels, with 21.4% of the population living below the poverty line. According to Transparency International’s 2023 Corruption Perception Index, Uganda scored 26 on a scale of 0-100, where 0 indicates a highly corrupt public sector and 100 a clean system, and is ranked 141 out of 180 countries globally.

As a natural resources-dependent country, Uganda’s vulnerability is further exacerbated by increased climate change shocks, ranked 14th most vulnerable country to climate change according to the ND-GAIN Index country rankings. West Nile and Karamoja regions are the most at risk, with vulnerable groups such as women, youth, and refugees being the hardest hit.

Despite introducing several policy reforms, the country still grapples with weak local government structures, limited public participation in key decision-making structures, limited civic engagement and accountability, and waning political commitment to decentralization and environmental stewardship. State actors have limited capacity to respond to service delivery concerns effectively, and the citizens do not have the civic competence to hold their leaders accountable.

Illicit Financial Flows and Domestic Resource Mobilization

Updated on: 2023-09-13 13:20:57

The goal is to promote financial transparency in Uganda by mitigating Illicit Financial Flows and increase domestic resource mobilization for development

The Illicit Financial Flows and Domestic Resource Mobilization project is an international initiative to promote financial transparency being implemented in Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Belize, and Colombia. The project seeks to address the critical issue of Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) to increase domestic resource mobilization. Illicit financial flows (IFFs) are illegal movements of money or capital from one country to another. According to the Global Financial Integrity (GFI), this movement is classified as an illicit flow when funds are illegally earned, transferred, and/or utilized across an international border. IFFs, driven by illicit financial activities, tax evasion, and corruption, undermine the economic stability and development potential of a nation.

Illicit financial flows result in a loss of tax revenues often desperately needed to fund public projects or critical public investments. Collectively, for developing countries, this often represents millions of dollars in lost or foregone tax revenues that could have otherwise been collected and used to support sustainable economic growth and job creation, reduce inequality and poverty, and address climate change, among other priorities. With billions of dollars estimated to be illicitly leaving developing countries including Uganda every year, this drain of public resources undermines the efforts of countries to mobilize more domestic resources to meet their development agendas.