Planning for Change: Uganda’s Pathway to a Just and Sustainable Transport Future
As Uganda plans for long-term economic transformation, any major shifts—such as modernizing or greening its transport systems—must be handled in a way that protects livelihoods and expands opportunity.
The Uganda Just Transition Framework (2025) provides the national blueprint for achieving this, outlining how government, communities, and development partners can ensure that no one is left behind as structural change unfolds. Development of the framework was led by the Ugandan National Planning Authority (NPA), with technical and financial support from the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) and the African Development Bank.
A recent transport sector study, conducted by the Bank with support from CIF and in partnership with Uganda’s Ministry of Works and Transport, offers a practical example of how the Just Transition Framework would operate in practice. Although not yet proof that Uganda is ready to formally transition its transport systems, the study demonstrates the type of analysis required when considering sector-wide reforms.
It assessed the potential impacts of introducing cleaner mobility options, such as electric motorcycle taxis and minibuses, on jobs, incomes, gender equity, and community welfare. Under the Just Transition Framework, any transport shift would begin with screening for social welfare risks: How might drivers, mechanics, informal operators, or low-income commuters be affected? Would new technologies raise or reduce household costs?
Based on identified risks, planners must then undertake detailed additional analysis, mapping which groups are most vulnerable: women traders, youth riders, informal sector workers, small repair businesses, or regional transport hubs. They must also assess how changes in mobility systems could alter access to basic services, affect land use, or shift local government revenues.
The framework requires broad stakeholder engagement, ensuring that those who rely on the current transport economy are consulted to help shape priorities, identify risks, and co-design mitigation measures. This includes accommodating different regional realities and the impact of gender in transport work.
Based on this analysis, the government would then develop targeted support strategies, such as skills training for workers adapting to new technologies, access to credit for small operators, explicit measures to expand opportunities for women, and protections for communities affected by new infrastructure. All of these strategies must be financed, realistic, and aligned with national development goals.
Finally, all approved measures must be consolidated into a Just Transition action plan that will be integrated into Uganda’s national planning and budgeting processes, to ensure sustainability, accountability and long-term monitoring.
The collaboration underpinning both the framework and the transport study reflects a strong, long-standing partnership between CIF and the African Development Bank Group: two institutions working jointly across Africa to support equitable, climate-aligned development, drawing from the Bank Group’s legacy of deep engagement in Uganda, financing infrastructure, energy, and social development programs.
The ensuing partnership delivers support that will enable Uganda to prepare for future sector transitions, such as in transportation, focusing on outcomes that are inclusive, data-driven, and rooted in social equity.
- Read the study here.
- Find the Uganda’s Just Transition Framework on the NPA’s website here.
- Find more about CIF here
- Read more about the African Development Bank Just Transition initiative here
Source : AFDB
