The preparation and presentation of these documents were carried out by the Center of Excellence for Climate-Sensitive Macroeconomic Modeling (CEACM), which operates at the College of Business and Management Sciences at Makerere University.
This project is being implemented against the background of Uganda's desire to strengthen real-world planning in order to achieve ambitious economic development goals, including a tenfold increase in the size of the economy and reaching a GDP of $500 billion.
Minister of State for the Environment Beatrice Atim Anywar, speaking on behalf of the Minister of Water Resources and the Environment, stressed that accounting for natural capital opens up a fundamentally new method for assessing the country's natural assets. «Today's event is not just the presentation of a report, but the launch of a new way to see, plan and manage Uganda's progress», Anywar said. She pointed out that classical indicators, including gross domestic product (GDP), do not fully reflect the state of natural resources, which are the foundation of the economy. «GDP does not provide an understanding of whether our forests, water resources and swamps are declining. It does not signal whether forests will retain their ability to retain moisture and whether our soils will be able to provide food for future generations», she added.
Uganda's natural resources are the basis of the livelihood of the population, tourism, hydropower and climate sustainability. «This capital supports more than 70% of our citizens and ensures the operation of hydroelectric power plants. It stimulates the tourism sector and protects against droughts and devastating floods», she said. The Minister warned that the destruction of ecosystems is tantamount to the loss of state property. «The degradation of natural capital is not only the loss of trees, swamps, water or soil. This is a loss of national wealth. We are depriving our future generations of jobs», Anvar concluded. She described natural capital accounting as a mechanism integrating environmental factors into Uganda's economic balance.
CEACM Director, Professor Edward Bbaale, explained that the purpose of the center is to integrate climate factors into government planning, budgeting, and macroeconomic regulation. «It is imperative that climate change does not fall out of sight when budgeting, developing macroeconomic structures and fiscal strategies, but rather becomes an integral part of them», he stressed.
Professor Barnabas Nawangwe, who holds the post of Vice-Chancellor of Makerere University, emphasized that the launch of this project confirms the effectiveness of interaction between the academic community, government agencies and international donors in the process of knowledge generation for public policy.
Davis Wuningoma, interim Commissioner for Macroeconomic Policy at the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, warned that ignoring climate threats could undermine Uganda's economic aspirations. «Without timely resolution of these issues, our fiscal field may narrow, which will negatively affect the quality of public services», stated Vuningoma.
Representatives of the international community, in particular from the Global Institute for Green Growth (GGGI) and the Danish Embassy, insisted that the scientific data obtained should not gather dust in archives, but serve as a practical tool for making managerial decisions.
CEACM Coordinator Dr. Peter Babenda, who presented the research data, said that five analytical documents are devoted to Uganda's energy sector, forest resources, ecosystem functions, land capital and water reserves. According to the findings, traditional biomass accounts for about 87 percent of the country's energy consumption, while the volume of forest resources fell by 45 percent between 1990 and 2015. Studies have also established that the key causes of soil degradation are uncontrolled agricultural sector development, deforestation and urban growth.
The introduction of this system marks a qualitative shift: Uganda's natural resources are now viewed not only as an environmental factor, but also as concrete, measurable components of national well-being and drivers of economic transformation.
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