Planning for Uganda's Urbanization
Uganda has started its journey into urbanization and economic development. The pace of urbanization is picking up currently at 4.5 percent per year, and likely to accelerate with rising incomes. The economic benefits from urban growth will come fro...
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| Format: | Policy Note |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2017
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/353841468318588458/Planning-for-Ugandas-urbanization http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27439 |
| Summary: | Uganda has started its journey into
urbanization and economic development. The pace of
urbanization is picking up currently at 4.5 percent per
year, and likely to accelerate with rising incomes. The
economic benefits from urban growth will come from
exploiting economies of scale and agglomeration and by
increasing fluidity in factor markets that enable
substitution between land and non land inputs. Uganda's
urban transformation is occurring in a period of particular
flux a changing climate is likely to adversely influence
rain fed agriculture, which will have bearing on the
prospects of small towns that serve as interlocutors with
the rural economy. At the other end, closer economic
integration in East Africa will increase the reach of the
country's largest metropolis, but place it in direct
competition with other metropolises in the region. As prices
of tradable converge in an open economy, considerable
thought and effort will be needed to reduce the prices of
non tradable services that can help maintain economic
competitiveness. Policymakers both at the national and local
levels need to see themselves as change managers who
encourage flexibility in how Uganda's towns and cities
respond to emerging needs of business and households.
Planning ahead is important, but not locking settlements
into today's market needs becomes even more important.
What are policy priorities to harness economic and social
aims from urbanization? This policy note is organized in
three sections to answer this question. The first section
provides stylized facts on the pace, form and efficiency of
Uganda's urban transformation. Section two identifies
how land policies, urban planning and transport constraints,
and housing shortages are choking urbanization and the
economy. Section three lays out a framework for prioritizing
and sequencing urbanization policies. A statistical annex is
also provided at the end. |
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