IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN UGANDA

A STATEMENT BASED ON CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS’ PERSPECTIVES

JULY 2019
 Acknowledgement
Special appreciation to Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, Uganda Coalition
for Sustainable Development, Climate Action Network Uganda, SaferWorld,
Anchor-Africa, Legal Aid Service Providers Network, World Vision, Platform for
Labour Action, Uganda National NGO forum and National Union of Disabled
Persons of Uganda Organizations that provided input on goals 4, 10, 13, 16 and main
main-
streaming of disability issues.

We also greatly appreciate other members of the 2030 Agenda Core Reference
Group who participated in the consultations.

1. Introduction
The involvement of civil society in the Agenda 2030 started with the participation of
the sector in the processes that culminated into the adoption of the Agenda 2030 in
September 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly. In 2015, CSOs in Uganda
formed the Post-2015 CSO Reference Group which participated in the definition of
the SDGs at global and national level. Over the years, Civil Society under the auspic-
es of the 2030 Agenda CSO Reference Group has made significant strides in public
awareness creation and implementation of specific activities and projects towards
realization of the SDGs.

The Government of Uganda (GoU) showed its commitment to the SDG agenda at an
early stage, submitting a Voluntary National Review (VNR) report titled Review
Report on Uganda’s Readiness for Implementation of the 2030 Agenda at the High
Level Political Forum (HLPF) in July 2016. In 2016, Government of Uganda devel-
oped a coordination framework to guide the implementation of the 2030 Agenda
under the leadership of the Office of the Prime Minister. A costed National SDG
Roadmap is also in place. The roadmap aligns and synchronizes approaches and
efforts of government and all stakeholders for the strategic attainment of the SDGs.
Furthermore, Government of Uganda has appointed a focal point Minister and
Senior Technical Advisor on SDGs.

The 2019 High Level Political Forum anchored on the theme: "Empowering people
and ensuring inclusive and equality " will focus on SDGs 4, 8, 10, 13 and 16. This
statement provides a snapshot of progress made and recommendations towards
achieving SDGs 4, 8, 13 and 16. It also highlights the extent to which disability has
been integrated in the implementation of the SDGs. This statement will form the
basis for the 2019 CSO-SDG report and will contribute to the 2019 SDG national
review processes.

1 IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN UGANDA
 SDG 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable
quality education and promoting
learning opportunities for all by 2030
Despite a lack of clear government
data in many areas, there is some
evidence that Uganda is making
considerable progress towards the
achievement of SDG 4. There are a
number of projects and policy initia-
tives aimed towards realization of
gender equity, inclusion of Special
Needs Education (SNE) and the reha-
bilitation of previously war-ravaged
areas such as the Karamoja region.
Moreover, Uganda is often touted as a
model country for providing educa-
tional rights to refugees. This is part of
the conclusion made in a research
report published by the Initiative for
Social and Economic Rights (ISER) in
June 2019 titled: Are we on Track?
The Status of Implementation of SDG
4 on Education: Is Uganda on Track?
On access to both primary and
secondary education, the Government
of Uganda policy for provision of
equitable access to primary and
secondary education is to establish at
least one primary school in each
parish and a secondary school per
Sub County. In this regard, there have
been efforts by the Ministry of Educa-
tion and Sports (MoES) to improve
access to education but there are
challenges related to distance a child
has to walk to access a school. Under
the primary sub sector, government
has provided a primary school in 6,167
parishes and is now working on the
remaining 1,100 parishes. This has led
to increase in enrollment at this level.
Although basic enrollment indicators
are not used for the global SDG4
targets, Uganda has included it as a
national indicator. Specifically, Uganda
has focused on the Gross Enrollment
Ratio (GER). GER numbers generally
exceed 100% in Uganda.According to
the Education and Sports Strategic
Plan FY 2017/18-2019/20, the national
targets for GER in the primary sector
were 109% in 2015, 114.1% in 2016, and
114.7% in 2017. At the secondary sub
2 IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN UGANDA
sector, since the FY2015/16, 20 seed Recommendations
schools have been constructed. In
•Government should invest
FY2016/17, 20 community schools
more resources in the education
were grant aided and more 63 schools
sector to address issues of teacher
have been earmarked for grant aiding
recruitment and training and
in FY2019/20.GER was 30% for
construction of school infrastructure
2014/15, and 24.5% for 2015/16. In
including sanitation facilities.
2016/2017, GER was recorded at 27.1%.
•There is urgent need for
government to improve provision of
Despite several development initia-
SNE teachers and instructional
tives by government and partners,
materials to support inclusive
gaps in Uganda’s education systems
education.
have remained pervasive. The
•The use of parish (primary)
Government of Uganda’s public
and sub-county (secondary) as
education system is grossly under-
planning units for establishment of
funded. There are serious staffing
government aided schools should
gaps at both secondary and primary
be augmented with consideration
especially for the science subjects.
of area size, population size and
This situation is most apparent in hard
geographical factors.
to reach areas.Uganda is behind on its
•Ministry of Education and
infrastructure commitment, consider-
Sports should develop and imple-
ing that MoES is still struggling to meet
ment a rationalized teacher deploy-
a more basic goal of at least one
ment and transfer mechanism to
primary school per parish and one
address staffing gaps in hard to
secondary school per sub county, as
reach and undeserved areas.
stated in the NRM Manifesto.There is
lack of targeted funding and sectoral
leadership for Menstrual Hygiene
Management (MHM) especially in
primary schools which affects girls’
learning.There is a critical need around
provision of Special Needs Education
teachers and instructional materials to
support inclusive education.
 SDG 8: Promote sustained inclusive and suitable
economic growth, full and productive and
decent work for all
Decent employment opportunities for all in
conditions of freedom, equity, security and
human dignity remain at the core of the
Uganda’s transformative agenda. To this
end, over the past years, Uganda has adopt-
ed policies and put in place initiatives to
effectively tackle employment and decent
work challenges. These include; the Nation-
al Employment Policy; youth policies such as
the National Youth Policy, Youth Venture
Capital Fund and Youth Livelihood
Programme; legislations against child labour,
human trafficking and the recently passed
Minimum wage bill,2015.
Nonetheless, there are still a number of
bottlenecks impeding the fulfilment of this
goal. Uganda’s unemployment rate is still
high standing at 2.1% in 2017 and most
common among youth who are the majority
population (70%). Currently, 4 out of 10
young Ugandans are out of work. Social
protection programmes fail to provide
adequate coverage to the majority of the
economically active population. Non-stan-
dard employment that has no social protec-
tion and always impacts on the rights to
organise and form labour unions is common
in Uganda.
3 IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN UGANDA
In addition, many young girls
have been exported to the
Middle East to provide
labour and most of them
have always turned out to
be abused and others killed.
Millions of children are work-
ing in exploitative conditions
in Uganda, with 93% of rural
children believed to be
engaged in commercial or
subsistence agricul-
ture.Gaps in the legal frame-
work persist, including
contradicting laws regulating
the minimum age for
employment. Funding for
youth programmes has
reduced. In the FY 2019/20,
the budget of the Youth
Livelihood Programme
reduced from 65.65 billion
for FY 2018/19 to now only
UGX 4.62 billion for FY
2019/20.
Recommendations
•The labour ministry needs to
consistently conduct adequate
inspections of all work places to
ensure that they are compliant with
the conditions, sensitize the public
about the dangers of precarious work.
Enforcement of sexual harassment
policies at all work places is key.
•The Industrial Court should
be well facilitated to handle the labour
disputes brought before it.
•Expand existing social
programs to address the scope of the
child labor problem, particularly in
agriculture and commercial sexual
exploitation.
•Institutionalize anti-traffick-
ing training, including victim identifica-
tion techniques, for all front-line
officials, including police, immigration
officers, prosecutors, and judges
•Expedite the establishment
of the Minimum Wage Board to fix a
minimum wage for all sectors.
 SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat
climate change and its impacts
Sustainable Development Goal 13
emphasizes the globally agreed need to
mitigate human –induced greenhouse
gas emissions and adapt to the damages
caused by climate change. The National
Development Plan II (NDPII, 2015-2020)
notes that climate change is one of the
greatest challenges for Uganda to
realize its Vision 2040 of a transformed
modern and prosperous country. Conse-
quently, Uganda has made deliberate
efforts that seek to mitigate the effects of
climate change. In addition to ratification
of the UN Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD), the Convention to
Combat Desertification (CCD), the
Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC), Kyoto Protocol and
the Paris Agreement, a National Climate
change policy (2015) and its accompany-
ing costed strategy is in place to foster
resilience and adaptive capacity building
to climate related hazards and natural
disasters in Uganda.
Furthermore, government has trained
climate change focal point officers in the
use of the national climate change
indicators and performance measure-
ment framework; the Green House Gas
Inventory Management System has been
operationalized and climate change
related initiatives such as - Uganda
Strategic Programme for Climate Resil-
ience have been put in place; There are
efforts to mainstream climate change into
national policies, strategies and plans at
all levels. Sensitization of communities
on climate change impacts and capacity
strengthening to take action by different
actors is ongoing.
Notwithstanding the above progress so
far, climate change continues to persist
as observed and manifested through the
increase in frequency and intensity of
extreme weather including high
temperatures leading to prolonged
drought and erratic rainfall patterns.
This has been exacerbated by
increased influx of refugees currently
at over 1,200,000 that have had
negative impact on forests and other
environmental resources in areas of
dense settlement thus suppressing
the regeneration capacity of natural
resources to which host communities
largely depend. While some prog-
ress has been made on the develop-
ment of policies and strategies, a
well-defined institutional setup with
appropriate capacity to implement
them is still missing. This is not only
the case at the national level, but
more so at local levels, where the
implementation challenge is most
acute.
The climate change bill that would
provide the legal and regulatory
framework for the operationalization
of the climate change policy is yet to
be passed. Further there is limited
capacity by the Ministry of Water and
Environment (the National Imple-
menting Entity) to develop proposals
to access the Adaptation Fund and
the Green Climate Fund (to which the
Ministry of Water and Environment
has recently been accredited).This
limits Uganda’s actions to strengthen
resilience to climate change. Govern-
ment of Uganda is still spending the
bulk of its resources on managing
and responding to disaster as
opposed to managing and reducing
disaster risk.Lastly, there are
context-dependent changes to the
land use exacerbating land grabbing,
forceful evictions and consequent
encroachment on forests, wetlands
thus lowering potentials for seques-
tering carbon and other GHG emis-
sions, while strengthening resilience
of communities and affected ecosys-
tems.
Recommendations
•Expedite the passing of the
Climate Change Bill into Law with
provisions from a ‘Rights based
approach.’
•The need to conduct a
countrywide climate change vulner-
ability assessment and commit to
using climate science and local
knowledge in gathering of data on
climate Change and its Impacts
including emergencies, disaster risk
and reduction (DRR) planning.
•To further address climate
change resilience, the Ministry of
Water and Environment urgently
needs to expand the shortlist of high
impact sectors to include oil and gas
and security sectors as targets for
mainstreaming ENR and climate
change.
•Scale up: Polluter pays
principle and with social safety nets
for vulnerable communities and
indigenous peoples;
•Domestic resource mobili-
zation for climate resilience and
adaptation actions should be scaled
up.
•SDG 13 as a new and
emerging global challenge needs
more disaggregated and regularly
updated information for more effec-
tive evidence-based planning and
policy-making at all levels.
4 IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN UGANDA

SDG 16: Promote Peaceful and inclusive
societies for sustainable development,
provide access to justice for all and
build effective, accountable and inclusive
institutions at all levels.
The Government of Uganda through the
Justice Law and Order Sector is making
some effort to address the limited access to
justice for the poor, vulnerable and margin-
alized. The judiciary is taking steps towards
automation of the court process to reduce
the cost of access to justice, eliminate
opportunistic corruption, reduce delays
and ultimately, make the administration of
justice more efficient and effective.Other
key reforms include; a case backlog strate-
gy, judiciary performance management
tool, judiciary toll-free customer feedback
hotline to enhance its public accountability
processes, increase in legal one-stop
service points-59.3% in 2016 to 61.5% in
2018 and the continued roll out and opera-
tion of the of small claims courts by the
Judiciary, which require no legal represen-
tation In the financial year 2019/2020,
government allocated 22 billion to
enhance pay for judicial officers, state
attorneys and prosecutors and 53 billion to
enhance efficiency in the justice system to
address case backlog.
In response to child protection, Uganda is a
path finder country with regard to ending
Violence Against Children. Government
has ratified and domesticated most of the
key international child protection instru-
ments through the enactment of several
child protection laws and Policies- Children
(Amendment) Act (2016), Prevention of
Trafficking in Persons Act (2009), Domestic
Violence Act (2010), National Child Labour
Policy, National Strategy on Ending Child
Marriage and Teenage Pregnancy.
The above efforts notwithstanding, there is
still much that can be improved in the areas
of violence (especially gender-based
violence and violence against children),
and the accessibility, effectiveness, and
affordability of the civil justice system. The
increased levels of income poverty at 27%
in Uganda have continued to hinder access
to justice for all. Since 2012, government
has failed to adopt the National Legal Aid
Policy that recognizes the urgent need to
introduce legislation and to establish a
body that can devote itself in a full-time
capacity to the provision of access to
justice and legal aid to all indigent persons
in Uganda –particularly those in
peri-urban and rural areas. In addition,
the Legal Aid Bill 2018 whose main
objective is to provide for easy access
to free legal aid by marginalized and
vulnerable groups has since stalled
on the floor of parliament due the
reluctance of the Finance Ministry to
issue a Certificate of Financial Implica-
tion for the Legal Aid Bill, 2018.
Violence and related death rates have
escalated, despite laws and policies
to protect the victims and survivors.
Citizens are taking the law in their
hands with unfortunate acts of mob
violence coupled with increased acts
of intolerance and unlawful depriva-
tion of life by unknown people,
arbitrary arrests and harassment by
security operatives. Uganda continues
to register cases of violations against
children with incidences of child
neglect, sexual exploitation and
abuse. This has been attributed to:
inadequate implementation of laws
and policies for child protection; harm-
ful cultural practices; inadequate
financing of child rights programming
(FY 2018/19, the social development
sector was allocated only UGX 214
billion approximately 0.8 percent of
the national budget).
According to the Ministry of Gender,
Labour and Social Development,
Violence Against Children Survey
2018, for the 18-24 years olds- 1 in 3
girls and 1 in 6 boys experienced
sexual violence during their
childhoods, 11% of girls experienced
pressured or forced sex, 4 in 10 girls
(44 per cent) and 6 in 10 boys (59 per
cent) aged 13 to 17 experienced physi-
cal violence in the previous year.
Defilement cases are on the increase,
in 2017, police received 14,985 cases
of sexual abuse of persons under the
age of 18 compared to 17,395 cases in
2016. Only 3.14% of defilement cases
were taken to court. 4 out of every 10
girls are married off before the age of
18.
Recommendations
•Increase budgetary alloca-
tion to the justice sector to address
perennial challenges such as Case
backlog affecting the entire justice
chain, congestion in prisons, preven-
tion and response to crime; the slow
progress of de-concentration of
services.
•Government should imple-
ment the Parliament resolution to
increase the number of high court
judges from 49 to 82 in order to deal
with the shortage of human resource
•Formal and informal justice
strategies and legal empowerment
frameworks should incorporate
human rights based strategies to
ensure inclusiveness with particular
attention to women, PWDs and other
groups that face persistent barriers to
justice.
•Cabinet should expedite the
adoption of the National Legal Aid
Policy and Parliament should
fast-track the passing of the National
Legal Aid Bill
•Generate and disseminate
knowledge, evidence and data on
ending violence against children-For
any country to have a strong child
protection sector there is need to
generate reliable evidence and data
to inform action by all actors.
•Increase public understand-
ing of and respect of rule of law
through awareness campaigns.
Girls are also threatened by child
marriage and female genital mutila-
tion/cutting (FGM/C). Uganda is
among the top 25 countries with the
highest rates of child marriage.
Despite this, birth registration remains
low which has made it hard to prove
cases of child marriage in legally. The
justice sector continues to grapple
with underfunding, low staffing levels
and case backlog. The inadequacy in
staffing has greatly affected access to
justice as the few judicial officers can
only handle a small percentage of the
workload in the courts and cannot
sufficiently meet the justice needs of
majority Ugandans. Since 2010, The
proportion of unsentenced (remand-
ed) prisoners to the entire prison
population continues to remain above
50% of the prison population.
5 IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN UGANDA
 Mainstreaming Disability Issues in SDG Implementation
The SDGs have given a new impetus
to disability inclusion. Some of the
goals are explicit on disability while
others mention disability by referring
to “Inclusive” and “All”. According to
the 2014 National Housing and Popu-
lation Census, PWDs constitute
14.82% of Uganda’s total population
of 37.78 million people. Uganda has
made tremendous progress in the
promotion and protection of the
rights of persons with disabilities
through enacting disability friendly
legislation and policies. The Uganda
Functional Difficulties Survey 2017
SDG 4: Goal 4: Ensure Inclusive and
Equitable Quality Education and
Promote lifelong learning Opportunities
for All
While lack of access to school is an
issue, an equal concern is the inability
of the education system to ensure quali-
ty education for children with disabili-
ties.  The system lacks skilled teachers
in inclusive pedagogical education
approaches coupled with limited scho-
lastic materials adaptable to the learn-
ing needs of children with special need.
Early Childhood Development (ECD),
care and preprimary education remains
expensive since majority are run by
private sector and without clear regula-
tions making it inaccessible to low
income families with children with
disabilities. Despite the ongoing affirma-
6 IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN UGANDA
conducted by Ministry of Gender,
Labour and Social Development in
collaboration with Uganda Bureau of
Statistics stablished that 17% of all
adults (aged 18 years and above), 7% of
children (aged 5-17 years) and 4% of
children (aged 2-4 years) had a disabili-
ty. This section provides a snapshot on
the progress made on the Inclusion of
Persons with Disabilities in the SDG
implementation in Uganda.
tive action scholarship of 64
students with disabilities joining
public universities annually, the
vocational institutional learning
environment has remained inacces-
sible with unskilled instructors on
disability.
Recommendations
•Government should expe-
dite the completion of the Special
Needs and National Inclusive
Educational Policy to address
concerns of access quality and
equity in education.
•Government should priori-
tize recruitment of qualified special
need education teachers in Primary
and Secondary Schools and Teach-
ers Training Colleges.
•Invest in teacher training
for inclusive education –retooling
teachers through continuous profes-
sional development programs with
appropriate skills and knowledge on
inclusive education.
•Government should
ensure operationalization of acces-
sibility related laws, policies and
guidelines to encourage the enroll-
ment of Persons with Disabilities in
vocational education.
•Government should expe-
dite the process of establishing
ECDs in all public schools for afford-
ability and accessibility purposes.
 SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive
and sustainable economic growth,
full and productive employment Recommendations
and decent work for all. •Increase annual budget
allocations to the special grant to
Government established social economic ate the labour market and match with the increasing number of
empowerment programs such as Youth wage gaps in the formal PWDs
livelihood programme (YLP), Operational sector have worsened for •Government should
Wealth Creation (OWC), Uganda Women women with disabilities enforce the implementation of exist-
Entrepreneurship Program (UWEP) and special which has hampered the ing laws that promote employment
grant for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs). All employment of PWDs. of Persons with disabilities and
these programs are intended to reduce the ensure that such laws are not
social economic inequalities associated with discriminating persons with Disabili-
Persons with Disabilities. However, funding to ties.
the budget allocation to the special grant has •Government should
stagnated at 3 billion shillings since 2009. This provide a specific quota on the
does not compare favorably with allocations to employment of Persons with Disabil-
the Uganda Women Entrepreneurship ities.
Programme that stand at 32 billion in •Government should put in
FY2019/2020. Decent work opportunities for place policies that facilitate job
PWDs in Uganda are still limited. There are retention and return to work for
physical and structural barriers at work, stereo- persons who acquire a disability,
types about the PWDs that continue to perme- including for persons with mental
health conditions.

SDG 10: Reduce inequality

within and among countries

Targets 10.2 and 10.3 have been supported
with government’s commitment to adopt
national disability and legislation and policies
including the Mental Health Act 2018, National
Disability Planning Guidelines, Public Finance
Management Act 2015, with the provision for
Gender and Equity Certificate, Student Loan
Scheme, and the Disability Inclusive Health
Information Management System that has
been set up by Ministry of Health. Uganda has
also ratified the Marrakesh Treaty in 2018 to
facilitate access to published works for
persons with visual impairments. In spite of the
progress, discrimination against PWDs
persists. The lack of awareness about disabili-
ties coupled with limited access to assistive
devices and services has undermined the
ability of PWDs to exploit their full potential in
society at all levels. The absence of compre-
hensive disaggregated
disability data has also affect-
ed social, economic and
political inclusion of PWDs.
The delay in the institution of
the National Health Insur-
ance Scheme has
challenged access to afford-
able healthcare for Persons
with Disabilities and other
citizens.
Recommendations
•Government should fast
track the institution of the National
Health Insurance scheme to provide
affordable care for Persons with
Disabilities.
•Government should fast
track enactment of the Persons with
Disability Bill, 2018.
•Uganda Bureau of Statis-
tics (UBOS) should provide compre-
hensive, high quality disaggregated
National Data on Persons with
Disabilities to support Ministries,
Departments and Agencies of
Government (MDAs) and other Civil
Society Organizations in effective
programming and budgeting.

7 IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN UGANDA
 6.4.1 Recommendations
•Need for a clear strategy
on Disability Inclusion especially in
climate adaptation to ensure that
Persons with Disabilities are not left
SDG 13: Take urgent action to behind. A focal point person to coor-
combat climate change dinate with the Disability fraternity to
and its impacts ensure that Persons with Disabilities
are not left out should also be priori-
While Government of Uganda has demonstrated efforts to include Persons with tized.
Disabilities in Climate Change adaptation, there is lack of a clear Disability Inclu-
sion strategy in Climate adaptation.

SDG 16: Promote Peaceful and
Inclusive Societies for Sustainable
Development, Provide Access to
Justice for All and Build Effective,
Accountable and Inclusive
Institutions at All Levels.
Uganda is a party to several International
frameworks and commitments that are
intended to promote the rule of law in
favour of Persons with Disabilities. These
include Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (CRPD),
Marrakesh Treaty and East African Policy
on Disability. The Constitution under
Objectives and Direct Principles of State
Policy (XVI), Articles 32 and 35 provides
for the Rule of Law in favour of Persons
with Disabilities, Mental Health Act, 2018
and passing of the Persons with Disabili-
ties Bill, 2018. There have been efforts by
JLOS to mainstream disability in the
JLOS institutions. To enhance access to
justice to PWDs, Uganda Human Rights
Commission and Equal Opportunities
Commission have put in place Tribunals
for adjudication of cases of Persons with
Disabilities and other vulnerable mem-
bers in the community.
However, access to justice remains
elusive for many Persons with Disabilities
due to environmental, financial and attitu-
dinal barriers. The continued under
funding of the JLOS Sector to accommo-
date the reasonable accommodation
needs of Persons with Disabilities like
Sign Language Interpretation, provision
of braille materials has undermined
the rule of Law, equal and effective
access to justice in favor of PWDs in
Uganda. The limited awareness on
disability and disability handling by
lawyers and advocates is an obstacle
for PWDs to enjoy access to justice.
There are no procedural and age
related accommodations in the
Courts of Law that are utilized in the
promotion of equal access to justice
for Persons with Disabilities. For
example, the Evidence Act does not
allow persons with visual impairment
to give evidence in the Courts of Law.
The Laws, cases, summons and
judgments are not in accessible
formats for usage by Persons with
Disabilities which has greatly
hindered their access to information.
6.5.1 Recommendations
•The Judicial sector should
appropriately be funded to cater for
the inclusion of Persons with Disabil-
ities in the JLOS.
• Prioritize aware-
ness raising on Disability and
Disability for lawyers and advocates
to enhance equal access to justice
for PWDs.
•Government should
ensure operationalization of acces-
sibility related laws, policies and
guidelines to enable physical mobili-
ty of Persons with Disabilities at
Police, Courts and Prisons.
•Government should
harmonize the judicial system to
provide for procedural and age
related accommodations for
children and Persons with Disabili-
ties
•Government should
ensure the provision of Legal aid
services to Persons with Disabilities
to facilitate their access to equal
justice.
•Government should
ensure that Marrakesh Treaty and
CRPD are implemented by putting in
place appropriate steps to enable
access to information for Persons
with Disabilities.

8 IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN UGANDA
 Recommendations
•Government of Uganda
should popularize and implement
the CRPD Concluding Observations
SDG 17: Strengthen the means of and the 2018 Global Disability
implementation and revitalize Summit Commitments by coming up
with a costed National Plan of
the Global Partnership for Action.
Sustainable Development. •To promote international
partnerships, there is need for
On a positive note, the Government of hindrance to disability inclusion
Uganda to strengthen her reporting
Uganda submitted her initial report to the and hence affecting domestication
to international frameworks in
Committee of Experts on the status of of the CRPD. Besides, there is also
fulfilment of her international
implementation of the Convention on the lack of a Plan of Action by the
commitments.
Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Government of Uganda to imple-
in 2016. Uganda also participated in the ment the Global Disability Summit
2018 London Global Disability Summit by Commitments.
committing to improve the welfare of
Persons with Disabilities in the thematic
areas of Stigma and Discrimination,
Economic Empowerment and Harnessing
Technology and Discrimination. However,
the failure for Government to approve the
National Action Plan to implement the
CRPD Concluding Observations remains a

Conclusion
Governance and leadership at all levels is important to galvanize support for the SDGs. While the SDGs have been fully
owned by leadership at the national level, local governments need to be empowered to champion priority setting and
allowed flexibility in mobilizing resources for financing their development priorities. This will ultimately enhance local owner-
ship of the development processes. In addition, Uganda will need to build strategic partnerships for financing and explore
a mix of non-traditional financing options. Civil Society remains committed to working with all partners especially Govern-
ment to the fulfilment of the 2030 Agenda. Working together, the 2030 Agenda is an achievable dream.

9 IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN UGANDA
For More Information, Please Contact;

Uganda National NGO Forum

Plot 25, Muyenga Tank Hill Road
P.O Box 4636 Kampala
Tel: 0414-510272, 0392-260373
Email: info@ngoforum.or.ug
Website: www.ngoforum.or.ug