The Vice-President, Jessica Alupo, has said that for a country to develop, proper physical planning needs to be prioritised.
Alupo said there is need to guide the people on proper land use (developments) and human settlements which services are provided for under the sustainable urbanization and housing programme which is being implemented by the ministry of Lands , Housing and Urban Development.
“We can not talk of industrialisation and job creation in this country if there is no supporting infrastructure in urban areas such as electricity, roads, railways and other service delivery infrastructure that help lower costs of doing business,” she said.
Alupo was opening the Joint Review Meeting for the Sustainable Urbanization and Housing Programme at Speke Resort Munyonyo .
The Minister for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Judith Nabakooba, revealed that government of Uganda developed the first ever National Pyhsical Development Plan which is aimed at improving physical planning across the country.
Further , Nabakooba said government introduced the Parish Development Model which is geared towards improving household incomes, and sustainable social-economic transformation which in the long run would help improve urban conditions.
Mr.Samuel Mabala, a housing and urban development specialist noted the need for Uganda to urbanise and industrialse – to spur economic productivity and bring about rapid economic growth and development.
“Urbanisation is a key driver of economic development. We should be attracting more people from rural areas. More people in urban areas would lead to urbanisation which would spur economic productivity,” he said, adding that, “rural areas undermine economic productivity since there is low productivity. Cities across the world contributed the biggest share of their national GDPs.”
Both urbanisation and industrialisation, according to Mabala, “need to move hand in hand because it would be dangerous to urbanisation with out jobs.”
For Uganda to develop, Mabala said urbanisation needs to be at the center of national development. He said the land market in the country needs to be regulated – since land is considered as an investment .
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Urban development, Dorcus Okalanyi, said the sustainable urbanisation and housing programme is one of the 20 programmes of NDP III.
The programme, she said, is central to the realisation of NDP III’s objective which is; to consolidate and increase stock and quality of productive infrastructure through leveraging urbanisation and housing.
