Impacts on environmental
planning and development
Over the last 18 years, the programme to improve the Malawi (Turyatunga 1998). NEMA has also been able
management of environmental information in Uganda to provide technical backstopping at a regional level. In
has brought a number of dividends to various planning 2000, NEMA was appointed one of six African UNEP
and development initiatives. This has been through en- Collaborating Centres to coordinate processes for envi-
vironmental assessment and reporting at different lev- ronmental reporting. NEMA is in charge of the Eastern
els, support to the national development processes, the Africa sub-region that includes Uganda, Kenya, Ethio-
use of remote-sensing technology for decision making, pia, Eritrea, Burundi, Rwanda, Djibouti and Somalia. Its
increased access to information including for education role includes coordinating the sub-region’s participation
and research, better public awareness, and local govern- in the Global Environment Outlook and Africa Environ-
ment planning, among others. ment Outlook processes. NEMA also coordinated the
production of the IGAD Environment Outlook which
Regular reporting on the environment was published in 2007.
Uganda has been using environmental assessment and
reporting as a tool to provide information to support de- The Environment Act also requires the lead agencies to re-
velopment planning, and monitoring of progress towards port annually to NEMA on environmental aspects of their
set targets since 1994. These assessments or State of the portfolio. NEMA has developed and shared guidelines on
Environment (SOE) reports provide an overview of the sectoral environment reporting with the Lead Agencies.
state of the environment and natural resource base. They A lead agency is defined as any ministry, department, par-
explain what is happening, analyse why it is happening astatal, agency, local government system or public officer
and indicate the responses at policy and action levels. The in which or in whom any law vests functions of control or
scope varies from the national to lower levels. management of any segment of the environment (GOU
1995). With the exception of the Department of Geologi-
The National Environment Act Cap 153 in Section 86 re- cal Surveys and Mines, the sectors have so far failed to ful-
quires that NEMA produce a State of the Environment fil this legal requirement. This may be as a result of weak
Report once every 2 years. NEMA has been doing this follow-up and enforcement of the legal requirement or at-
since 1994 and is able to share this experience with other tributed to insufficient incentives to compel lead agencies
countries that are publishing SOERs. Indeed the Ugan- to report. Such incentives could include, among others,
dan experience in producing SOERs has been sought by reporting formats, indicators, feedback mechanisms, and
and provided to the Governments of Eritrea, Lesotho and resources to prepare reports (NEMA 2005).
The Uganda Case Study 13
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