Reverend Jackson Rwabishari in Kakindo Village, Kiyagara Parish, Kahunge Sub-county in Kamwenge District. PHOTO/CHRISTOPHER BENDANA
As the world gears up for COP 30 in Belém, Brazil, countries are being encouraged to strategise to get more adaptation funding. Uganda has so far developed national adaptation plans for the agriculture and health sectors, while the Fourth National Development Plan (NDP IV) is advocating for climate-resilient infrastructure.
Experts are calling on the government to strategise through increased resource mobilisation for local adaptation strategies and strengthening partnerships with different entities to write proposals to tap into the funds, as Christopher Bendana reports.
The 18-acre farm of Reverend Jackson Rwabishari in Kakindo village, Kiyagara Parish, Kahunge Sub-county in Kamwenge District, has been developed to help him navigate the challenges of prolonged drought and to improve his income. The mixed farm has potatoes, bananas, beans, coffee trees, and fodder for his cattle. There are trenches to hold rainwater.
The circular agro-system ensures that the pigs feed on maize. The poultry, piggery, and cattle waste is used as manure to improve soil fertility. The system ensures that the retired cleric has multiple sources of income and plenty of food for home consumption.
Diversification is one of the key components of climate change adaptation, and it seems Rwabishari read the script. On the outside, things look good. But a closer inspection reveals a farmer struggling to cope with the vulgarities of climate change. Productivity is low when compared to that of the 1990s due to limited access to water. The rains are more erratic and unstable than before. Some of his coffee berries have ripened before they attained maturity because of the drought. The effects of the dry spell are not limited to Rwabishari’s farm, though. From Kakindo through Rwamwanja-Kasojo to the Mubende-Fort Portal highway are some maize fields showing comb failure due to lack of water.
Depending on the rain
Rwabishari is one of over a million farmers in the country (96 percent) who depend on rain-fed agriculture. Only one percent of Ugandan farmers use irrigation. “I am requesting the Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE) to provide me with an irrigation system. I can build a (valley) dam using my resources. With irrigation, one can harvest coffee continuously, not only twice in a year,” he says. The National Adaptation Plan for the Agricultural Sector (NAD-Ag) 2018 highlights that eight out of the ten most severe floods and droughts, in terms of numbers, since 1900 have occurred within the last 20 years. This amplifies the belief in the high intensity of climate change in the recent past. Adapting to climate change and creating resilience is a combination of diversification, knowledge awareness, and sustainable technologies.
Both the NAP-Ag and the updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) reveal that climate change potentially poses one of the greatest challenges for Uganda to realise its Vision 2040. The NDCs are a country’s plan for mitigation and adaptation activities. The NAP-Ag cites inadequate local-level climate adaptation financing, inadequate individual and institutional capacity, limited access to international climate finance, and support for technology and capacity-building as lacking.
Rwabishari is one of the lucky few to get institutional support. The coffee seedlings, agro-forestry support, and support to dig trenches on his farm are courtesy of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation through the Mpanga Watershed and Nature-Based Conservation Program run by MWE. He was provided with over 1,137 coffee seedlings, and orange, mango, and grevillea seedlings. Dr Brian Guma, the team leader of the Albert Water Management Zone from MWE, says farmers like Rwabishari are being supported to adapt to climate change as the area faces a prolonged drought as has never been seen before.
“The area is part of the cattle corridor, and Rwabishari’s farm is key as it borders a wetland that forms part of the River Mpanga Catchment area that pours into Lake George. By providing coffee seedlings and digging trenches, the farmer's productivity upstream can improve, reducing the pressure to encroach on the wetland,” he says.
A section of Rev. Jackson Rwabishari’s farm in Kakindo Village, Kiyagara Parish, Kahunge Sub-county, Kamwenge District. PHOTO/WILLIAM KINTU
Dr Guma argues that this helps the water hydrology to stabilise in the area as the water percolates slowly through the trenches, helping maintain the microclimate. “In other areas, we are advocating for agroforestry, mixing indigenous tree seedlings with high-value crops like cocoa and coffee. The farmers’ benefits from both crops and trees which increase their household income,” he says.
Road to Belém (COP of adaptation)
Meeting journalists during the online launch of the Belém Desk, Ana Toni, the chief executive officer of COP 30 (The 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference), revealed her interest in putting adaptation at the forefront in Belém, Brazil, especially in the areas of agriculture and food security. These are key areas for Uganda, where the majority of the population depends on agriculture, yet the sector is hard hit by drought and floods.
“We believe this COP could be a turning point for the topic of adaptation. Until now, adaptation has always been discussed at COPs, but at a much lower level of relevance compared to mitigation. We are already living in a world that has warmed by 1.50ºC, so both topics need to be strongly addressed,” she said. Toni highlighted the example of AdaptaClima - a Brazilian government program helping over 600 municipalities to develop adaptation plans depending on their need.
“There is a lot of technology being applied, especially in the countries of the Global South, but we have not yet had the opportunity to exchange experiences among specialists. That is why we hope COP 30 will finalise the discussion on adaptation indicators,” she argued. John Verdieck, the director of International Climate Policy at the Nature Conservancy, revealed that their biggest fear was negotiating for more adaptation financing. Currently, adaptation gets only ten percent of climate finance. “Can Belém be the COP of adaptation? The hot potato here is raising the US$1.3 trillion agreed upon in Baku (Azerbaijan) last year for climate change financing, and giving a huge slice to adaptation activities in the Global South.
Unlike mitigation, where emission reductions are measured, adaptation involves health, livelihoods, and other aspects that are difficult to quantify,” he said. He called for the need to develop indicators and financial mechanisms that incentivise good practices in adaptation. David Mfitumukiza, a climate change adaptation expert at Makerere University, argues that while it is important for the COP in Belém to focus on adaptation, many decisions involve procedures and processes already made by the time the COP is taking place. “They are only making pronouncements. You do not wait for COP as a platform to make inroads to get finance. I advise the Government of Uganda to work on capacity building, especially for experts, if the country is to make inroads in accessing adaptation funds to the levels of her peers like Kenya and Ethiopia,” he argues.
Mfitumukiza calls on the government to show commitment to domestic adaptation funding if it is to convince donors that adaptation is a priority. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning reported receiving US$410 million for climate action in 2023 from external sources, according to the Climate Change Finance Unit. This is only about ten percent of the money needed for climate action, taking into account that the estimated NDC from 2021-25 is US$28.1 billion. The Adaptation Gap Report 2024 of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) lists the NDCs and NAPs adaptation financing needs as estimated at US$387 billion per year from 2023 to 2030. However, international public adaptation finance to developing countries was US$28 billion in 2022. It recommends ways in which developing countries can improve their adaptation capacities by shifting from reactive, incremental, and project-based financing to more anticipatory, strategic, and transformational adaptation.
Reverend Jackson Rwabishari’s farm. Rwabishari is one of over a million farmers in the country (96 percent) who depend on rain-fed agriculture. Only one percent of Ugandan farmers use irrigation. PHOTO/COURTESY
The creation of incentives for adaptation investment, including risk finance insurance, resilience credits, debt for adaptation swaps, payments for ecosystem services, and resilience bonds. The key areas include the promotion of climate-resilient and low-carbon agricultural development, the promotion of sustainable management of ecosystems and the use of nature-based solutions, including through community engagement, the promotion and application of land management practices that support sustainable and productive use, and the promotion of climate-resilient water supply systems, and increase water supply capacity and use efficiency.
Other key areas include the strengthening of climate information services through improved data collection and sharing infrastructure, the development and promotion of a clean and resilient energy system, the promotion of climate-resilient and low-carbon urban planning and development, and the availability, promotion, and access to finance for climate-resilience, low-carbon investments, and climate impacts recovery.
Benefits of adaptation
A June 2025 working paper, Strengthening the investment case for climate adaptation: A triple dividend approach, by the World Resources Institute, indicated returns of $10.5 for each dollar investment in adaptation over 10 years. The paper studied 320 projects in 12 countries spread across the Global South from Kenya, Ethiopia, and Senegal in Africa to Vietnam, China in Asia, and Colombia and Brazil in South America, looking at water, agriculture, infrastructure, and health investment. The evaluated projects were supported by multilateral development banks and other international finance institutions, including the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Adaptation Fund, the Global Environment Facility, the Green Climate Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the World Bank.
The study reveals that the evaluated projects, valued at $133 billion, generated adaptation benefits of US$1.4 trillion. Adaptation helped farmers avoid a yield reduction of 18 percent and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 64 percent. Rwabishari is optimistic that he will earn millions of shillings annually within three years when he starts harvesting his coffee. “I expect to collect four kilograms of berries from each plant for each of the two seasons in a year. This means that in a good year, I can earn Shs50 million,” he boasts. Guma says that the water sector prospects are good. The water level in River Mpanga has increased, and power generation during the dry season is now at 5MW from about 1MW before the adoption of the water catchment programs.
Studies show that adaptation increases farmers’ income and the benefits of mitigation through carbon sinks and the use of solar irrigation. The key takeaway for Uganda is the promotion of climate-smart agriculture (CSA). The targets set in the NDCs of increasing the percentage of farmers practicing CSA from the baseline study of 31.7 percent to 51.2 percent in 2025 and then 70 percent in 2030 are a good start. What needs to be done is to create awareness of the benefits of adaptation.
