(PHOTO: STEPHEN WANDERA)
Kampala is projected to become a mega-city of more than 20 million by 2040.
This is according to the World Bank’s Uganda Economic Update being released this morning.
The update is published by the World Bank on a six monthly basis and the latest focuses on urbanization.
It also points out that other towns are expected to have a demographic explosion.
The update offers recommendations for Uganda’s leaders to help manage urbanization include ensuring well-functioning land markets, enhancing urban planning and improving connections between cities.
The report analyses the current state and prospects of Uganda’s economy and outlines a series of strategies to accelerate its growth. The report acknowledges that the economy is expected to grow faster in the medium term than it has in recent years.
However, both the low rate of private sector investment growth and the limited degree of transformation from low to higher productivity activities threatens to constrain the acceleration and maintenance of the high growth rates that are necessary to enable the country to achieve middle income status.
The report further notes that while the majority of the population is still concentrated in rural areas, non-agricultural economic growth and jobs are concentrated in urban areas. Similar patterns, with a concentration of economic growth in urban areas, are found in many other countries around the world.
The report concludes that supporting a more efficient urbanization process through investments in cities could accelerate growth, raise revenues and lower fiscal pressures. By managing the process of urbanization effectively, Uganda has excellent potential to achieve its goal of becoming a middle income country and of eliminating poverty all its citizens.
The World Bank also notes that with the rapidly increasing demand, the level of access to, and quality of public services such as water and sanitation services needs to be improved.
