ACCESS4ALL Group

Wakiso District in Uganda lacks a widely documented example of a fully successful Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) plan specifically focused on climate adaptation, but the Wakiso District Council's 2015 infrastructure development initiative stands out as a strong parallel case of effective community-engaged planning that addressed local infrastructure gaps through participatory processes. Plan Design the plan targeted infrastructure issues like roads amid rapid population growth around Kampala, recognizing the need for community land access and buy-in from the outset. District officials collaborated with CoST Uganda (Construction Sector Transparency Initiative) to incorporate regular "barazas"—community forums—for voicing concerns, ensuring design reflected local knowledge on land use and needs rather than top-down engineering assumptions. Implementation Process implementation began with trust-building barazas, which disclosed project details and gathered resident insights, transforming initial community-government distrust into collaboration. Engineers adjusted plans based on local input, reducing conflicts and enabling land use permissions, with ongoing transparency cutting questions on developments like roads. Alignment with Values this approach strongly represented community values by prioritizing participation, equity, and local wisdom over elite or external priorities, fostering mutual respect and shared goals for safer infrastructure. It addressed power imbalances through inclusive dialogue, aligning with Ugandan communal decision-making traditions. Challenges Addressed the plan tackled key barriers like trust deficits, poor communication, and land disputes—common in Wakiso's context of rapid urbanization—while overcoming engineers' initial overconfidence in technical expertise. However, broader Wakiso challenges like unsafe water access for 1 million residents and environmental degradation persist, suggesting scalability issues without sustained funding.