Making growth in Uganda sustainable: insights from frontier research
IGC's Uganda country team is proud to host a workshop focused on frontier research into achieving inclusive, sustainable growth through industrialisation, urbanisation, and improved environmental resilience.
Sam Mugume Koojo
Assistant Commissioner, Macro Economic Policy Department, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Uganda
Christine Alum Arwata
Research Fellow, Economic Policy Research Centre
Samuel Musoke Namwanja
Economist, Bank of Uganda
Richard Komakech
Principal Research and Innovations Officer, National Environment Management Authority
Paul Isolo Mukwaya
Lecturer and Head of Department, Geography, Geo-informatics, and Climatic Sciences, Makerere University
Smith Matsiko
Commissioner, Ministry of Lands Housing and Urban Development
Maureen Basuuta
Lecturer, Makerere University Business School-
2025 Kampala Workshop - Final Program.pdf
PDF document • 147.26 KB
-
Workshop booklet
PDF document • 2.32 MB
Achieving sustained economic growth is critical for raising incomes and improving living standards in Uganda. Identifying challenges and bottlenecks that hinder growth and structural transformation is therefore a priority. However, for this growth to translate into long-term well-being, it must also be inclusive and environmentally sustainable. Industrialisation and urbanisation, key drivers of economic transformation, can lead to increased inequality and marginalisation of certain social and economic groups; at the same time, they can lead to increased local congestion, pollution and environmental degradation—issues particularly pressing in Uganda and other developing countries due to limited regulatory capacity and reliance on older, high-emission production technologies. As a result, Ugandan cities face serious environmental and public health risks threatening livelihoods and economic resilience.
Uganda’s National Development Plan IV (NDPIV) aims to accelerate industrialisation and economic diversification while ensuring inclusivity and environmental sustainability. This workshop will explore the key challenges and opportunities in achieving these objectives by addressing the following three critical thematic areas:
Achieving Sustainable and Inclusive Economic Growth
• Economic growth in Uganda: challenges and opportunities
• Constraints to firm growth in congested and polluted cities
• Female employment and economic growth
Sectoral Strategies and Policy Development
• Contributions from industrial, agricultural, and service sectors to economic transformation
• The role of land markets for economic growth
• The role of the financial sector in supporting agricultural SMEs and rural economies
Reducing Exposure to Pollution and Improving City Infrastructure
• The role of technology in mitigating pollution emissions and exposure of households
• The role of information in avoiding exposure of households
• The role of infrastructure development in supporting cleaner and more sustainable growth
Workshop sessions
Session 1: Achieving Sustainable and Inclusive Economic Growth | |
| Subsession 1: Constraints to firm location in congested and polluted cities | |
| Consumer Search and Firm Location: Theory and Evidence from the Garment Sector in Uganda - Anna Vitali | View the slides here |
| Moving to Profitability? Alleviating Constraints on Microentrepreneur Location - Carolyn Pelnik | View the slides here |
| Subsession 2: Firms, gender, and growth | |
| Aggregate Implications of Barriers to Female Employment - Gaurav Chiplunkar | View the slides here |
| Gender Gaps Across the Spectrum of Development: Local Talent and Firm Productivity - Virginia Minni | View the slides here |
| Policy Discussant: Sam Mugume (Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development) | View the slides here |
Session 2: Sectoral Strategies and Policy Development | |
| Subsession 1: Land markets | |
| Land Property Rights, Financial Frictions, and Resource Allocation in Developing Countries - Kristina Manisheva | View the slides here |
| Land Tenure, Land Markets, and Land Use: Evidence from Uganda - Lorenzo Casaburi | View the slides here |
| Subsession 2: Credit in rural settings | |
| Slack and Economic Development - Dennis Egger | View the slides here |
| The Demand and Supply of Bank Loans to Agri-SMEs in Africa - Mohamed Abouaziza | View the sldies here |
| Policy Discussant: Richard Komakech (National Environment Management Authority) | |
Session 3: Reducing Exposure to Pollution and Improving City Infrastructure | |
| Subsession 1: Technology, information, and resilience | |
| The Financial, Pollution, Health, and Climate Impacts and Adoption Barriers of Improved Charcoal Cookstoves - Susanna Berkower | View the slides here |
| Beliefs, Signal Quality, and Information Sources: Experimental Evidence on Air Quality in Pakistan - Shotaro Nakamura | View the slides here |
| Subsession 2: Challenges of urbanization | |
| Waste Management in Uganda - Mark Buntaine | View the slides here |
| Policy Discussant: Smith Matsiko (Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development) | View the slides here |
Concluding remarks | |
| Recap: What are the big takeaways from today?-Tommaso Porzio | View the slides here |