New housing plans to include climate change mitigation measures

Local leaders with enumerators seated in flood water while interviewing one of the residents at Lambu landing site in Masaka District on May 15,2024. PHOTO/ISSA ALIGA
What you need to know:
- On January 8, during a training organised by the Green Building Council Uganda and the Climate Finance Unit of the Water ministry technocrats were also tasked on conservation.
Planners and structural developers must prioritise embedding a clear, comprehensive strategy for combating climate change.
The government, district officials, and development partners have unanimously agreed to the decision.
Senior officials from the Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development said there is a need to modify homes and the structures in the respective areas to determine the interventions within the urban limits that are specific to mitigating disasters such as flooding and pollution.
The ministry’s assistant commissioner in-charge of Urban Development, Ms Martha Mugarura, told officials from Wakiso District during the January 13 Eco-friendly Climate Smart Building Practices conference that such an arrangement would help the population to settle in planned areas that are environmentally conserved.
“We need to find a way in the built space to put in place green elements because if we do not do them, then those other impacts will have to be addressed technologically thereby causing more problems like through air conditioning, which requires more energy,” she said.
On January 8, during a training organised by the Green Building Council Uganda and the Climate Finance Unit of the Water ministry technocrats were also tasked on conservation.
Mr Robert Bakiika, the country facilitator for the Climate Change Department at the Water ministry, said: “We recognise that Uganda is increasingly urbanised and urbanisation presents a bigger opportunity to embrace sustainability...But what we are doing to control, reduce, or mitigate emissions? By 2015, the country was losing a quarter of GDP in climate change loss and damages.”