| Overview : Uganda’s vision is to attain upper middle economy status by 2040.? In tune with the Vision, the Government of Uganda is implementing the National Development Plan(NDP) II whose theme is “Strengthening Uganda’s Competitiveness for Sustainable Wealth Creation, Employment and Inclusive Growth’’, with the main goal of attaining middle income status by 2020. One of the strategic objectives of NDP over a five years’ period (2016-2020) is to increase Sustainable Production, Productivity and Value Addition in Key Growth Opportunities. ?On the other hand, Uganda’s economic and human development is closely tied to a number of climate-sensitive resources and sectors, such as agriculture, water, environment, natural resources, health, transport and housing.? The second National Development Plan (NDP II) recognizes that if climate and disaster risks are not addressed and proactive adaptation actions taken they could slow down Uganda’s transformation. This is because Uganda is susceptible to natural hazards, of which 70 per cent are of hydro-meteorological origin. Examples include floods, droughts, thunderstorms, hailstorms, and landslides. Uganda experienced 2,500 disasters in the last decade, and in 2010-2011[1] rainfall variability costed the country about USD 1.2 billion.? Natural hazards lowered the performance of the GDP by an average of 3.5 per cent between 2010 and 2014.[2] Uganda’s multi-hazard profile shows that the proportion of people affected by hazards is 51 per cent for drought, 35 per cent for floods, 4 per cent for landslides, 4 per cent for storms, 1 per cent for hailstorms and 2 per cent for others.[3] The ‘hot spots’ for disaster are the fragile dryland cattle corridor districts especially the Karamoja sub-region, mountainous and hilly areas of Mt. Elgon and Mt. Rwenzori sub-regions, south-western Uganda, low-lying areas and settlements in Kampala and Teso region. A large proportion of the Ugandan population has a low capacity to adapt to climate change. Climate change impacts are likely to be particularly negative on Uganda’s rural population because of their high dependence on rain-fed agriculture and natural resource-based livelihoods. Therefore, capacity to adapt to climate-related hazards should be developed to limit the negative impacts of climate change and address the country’s socio-economic and developmental challenges effectively. Improving hydromet services is integral to planning and implementing adaptation strategies, increasing resilience, and enabling sustainable socio-economic development in Uganda. Accurate, timely hydromet information is a critical requirement for i) protecting lives, livelihoods and infrastructure from extreme events, ii) developing and managing water resources including irrigated agriculture, hydro power and an improved water supply iii) planning and delivering better health services iv) providing access to safe air and road transportation, and developing risk financing tools and social safety net programs. An effective hydromet service reduces the economic and social impacts of hazardous hydromet phenomena such as lightning, flooding and drought. The provision of hydromet services is key to ensuring timely early warning and preparedness. However, such hydromet services are still inadequate in Uganda. A recent survey carried out by the WMO concluded that in Sub-Saharan Africa “there are wide-spread deficiencies in hydrometeorological observation networks, tele-communications, and informatics systems and very limited capacity in data management and product customization. The national hazard warning capacities are uneven, even nonexistent in some countries, while early warning programs often do not address all significant meteorological, climatological and hydrological hazards.” Over the past three years, with the support of various development partners, including the UNDP-GEF, the short term prediction accuracy of weather and climate information which had stagnated in the range of 40 to 50 per cent has improved significantly with the long-term prediction now estimated at 85 per cent. Through the UNDP-GEF funded Strengthening Climate Information and Early Warning Systems(SCIEWS) Project 25 automatic weather stations 16 automatic water level stations were procured, installed and linked to the Automatic messaging system thus enabling Uganda to provide timely and reliable hydromet prediction and forecast. improving the capacity of the Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UNMA) and the Directorate of Water Resources Management (DWRM) to generate and monitor hydro-meteorological information and disseminating to end users. As a result of this input, there is a significant improvement in the functionality of the meteorological systems including: the upper air observations; the weather stations that have been expanded, automated and in a few cases modernized in terms of now-casting technology; expanding the revenue basis for meteorological products. Uganda is aiming at attaining a middle income country status by 2020, and through the Second National Development plan, is mobilizing the resources needed by organizations and communities to achieve this goal. Within this initiative, the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development is responsible for helping mobilize and match resources to programme and projects prioritized on a strategic basis. In this regard, Uganda intends to build on the positive gains of the ongoing UNDP support to scale up an sustain functionality of the enhanced hydro-meteorological early warning systems in Uganda with a private sector orientation. This would build onto the Cost and Benefit analysis that has already demonstrated the true value of investing in climate information, and has illustrated that the products could be marketed, hence creating a vibrant market for CI products and services which could be emulated across the continent. It is against this background that UNDP is seeking services of a competent National Consultant to support government of Uganda to develop a programme towards enhancing and upgrading national hydromet services for strengthening the adaptive capabilities, capacity and resilience of vulnerable communities and the economy for submission to the Green Climate Fund. It is envisaged that the proposed project will become a key element of the National Vision 2040 and contribute to realization of Uganda Nationally Determined Contribution commitment to the Climate Change Paris Agreement. [1] Uganda integrated rainfall variability impacts, needs assessment and drought risk management strategy, 2010-2011; [2] World Bank-GoU: Uganda Rainfall Deficit 2010; [3] http://www.desinventar.net/DesInventar/profiletab.jsp?countrycode=uga. |
