A team of delegation from six city administrations and Ministry of Urban Development and Housing went on a study tour to Uganda to learn and gain experiences on mitigation and climate-resilience aspects of Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) and Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM).

Hosted by Ms. Christine Echokit Akello, Deputy Executive Director of National Environmental Management Authority (ENEMA) of Uganda and UNDP Uganda Country Director, the team got a chance to learn from the success and challenges of ISWM and UGI practices in Uganda. A site visit was organized for the team to visit the solid waste management practices of cities such as Kampala, Jinja and Mukon.

The mission representatives from cities of Adama, Bahir Dar, Bishoftu, Dire Dawa, Hawassa, and Mekelle met with relevant ministries and institutions of Uganda to forge partnerships, explore and agree on twinning arrangements considering the ecological, settlement and socioeconomic similarities of the cities.

The delegation also got a chance to review policies and strategies to help future works on ISWM, UGI management, GHG reduction and Carbon Marketing in their respective cities.

The team also learned about Windrow Composting method that is used by Uganda Municipalities to convert organic solid waste into valuable compost. 

The study tour was organized to support the implementation the GEF financed UNDP project, Ethiopian NAMA: Creating Opportunities for Municipalities to Produce and Operationalize Solid Waste Transformation (COMPOST), that promotes greater use of Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) and Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) approaches in six cities and towns.  

The project envisions to reduce annual emission reductions from UGI initiatives and ISWM equal to approximately 306,000 and 132,321 tCO₂e, respectively. In 20 years the direct emission reductions generated by the project will be 8.33 MtCO₂e, giving a GEF abatement cost of 0.80 US$/tCO₂e.