In rural areas and slums of Uganda extreme weather events continue to destroy the livelihoods of millions of local people. With sources of sustenance, like subsistence vocations, and small, informal businesses vulnerable to a rapidly changing climate, the people’s suffering has increased.

The people living in slums and rural areas have battled chronic famine, disease, and poverty for years because of underdevelopment. Their simple, unstable sources of sustenance are unable to adapt to the climate/weather shocks, which leaves them, their families and their communities severely impacted by them.

Weather shocks like Storms, floods, etc. destroy crops, property, settlements, contaminate water, cause poor sanitation, increase disease spread and take lives especially those of children. In rural areas, longer droughts and erratic rains cause crop failure. In slums people are unable to work and can’t afford food and medication.

As the people battle to offset the effects of an increasingly hostile climate, they are becoming more vulnerable to climate shocks and survival has become very hard. This has resulted in an increasing dependence on humanitarian assistance and government intervention.

Recurring vulnerability to climate change

Vulnerability is closely associated with the ways people earn their income. The more the income, the better they can recover from severe impacts and adapt. Income growth can significantly reduce the sources of vulnerability, and help households to cope with the risks they face.

In Uganda the current sources of income are subsistence agricultural livelihoods and small informal businesses. Production is done in traditional outdated ways which keeps the productivity low, incomes small and the producers vulnerable to climate change.

Modernization of these production activities that people get their sustenance from can increase incomes for local producers and workers. And as a result, people can be more resilient to climate change impacts.

The current intervention efforts (government and humanitarian), are either relief efforts (not trying to create better sources of income), or use approaches that cannot sustain the peoples income growth. These unsustainable approaches mainly involve efforts providing an isolated improvement in a single area of local production.

Over the years producers in the rural and slum areas of Uganda have received upgrades from different efforts. But without complimentary improvement in other areas of production they have failed to sustain income growth. This has kept people in recurring vulnerability regardless of the many years of intervention.

John Mugisha a maize farmer in Ibanda a rural Ugandan district recalls how over the years his community has received drought resistant varieties but still remains vulnerable.

“The new varieties they gave us yield more but we lack good storage and ready market, and the stored crop usually gets destroyed by weevils.” He told me.

A chapatti producer in Bwaise a Kampala slum prone to flooding told me about his frustration with a small loan project.

“I took out a loan and replaced my destroyed shelter with an improved one but with my low sales, am struggling with the loan and have nothing left to live on after payments.” He said.

Applying a complete upgrade effort to build permanent resilience

The complete upgrade effort is a effort trying to achieving production modernisation through simultaneous provision of all the needed upgrades.

Usually when an upgrade is made in one area of production, the other traditional ways of doing things will limit, negate and even discourage the new improvement. An improvement is one area, is held back or sustained by how improved or not, the other areas are.

Thus the combination/ interaction of all the improvements create an environment that sustains modernization and income growth to bring about permanent resilience.

The local people who are vulnerable to climate change require numerous upgrades which fall in 6 categories. These categories are:

Improving Green Technology Usage

Improvement in mechanization, plus usage of modern production processes/techniques needs to be done to enable cheaper, easier, and efficient production. Technology must be green to ensure climate smart production.

Improving Capital Investment

Better ways of raising and employment in production are needed so as to afford/ maintain improved technology, carry out proper organization, implement proper business operation, ensure proper business management and other improvements.

Improving Business Management

How and who does the management of the daily business of producing and selling goods and services must be improved. Employment of better management/ managers is a must to ensure efficient use of other upgrades for beneficial results.

The skill and knowledge of the labor force at all levels of production has to be increased to ensure proper capital investment, proper business operation etc.

Improving Business Operations

Improvement in the daily business operations of making and selling products/ services needs to be done. The business strategies or behaviors essential for profitability and business success must be employed. These include, better leadership, improved business models, better marketing, new products, better product standards, standards, branding, advertising and others.

Improving Product Development

This must be done to ensure that the new technology makes products better and cheaper. Product development involves all the ways of preparing products and services for the market, such as value addition, creation of new and better products/ services.

Improving Business Organization

The way producers are organized as a business must improve. Producers must be organised carefully with a modern production system to ensure all improvements are done.

The new organization needs to allow investment, raising of capital from different sources and enforce better business operation better product development, better business management and other improvements.

The green modernization project

To provide all these upgrades to local producers, and properly coordinate them for a green modernisation of production, the modernization project will organise local producers into “modern production organisation” (startup/ brand) carrying out green, formal, modern production and business.

Modernization and structural transformation can be accompanied by greater risks for an individual producer. By joining the green modernisation project, these risks preventing subsistence-orientated producers and small businesses from becoming modern and formal can be reduced.

And by making this modernisation and transformation of local production clean and environmentally friendly the climate resilience and adaptation of the people can be ensured.

With extreme climate change impacts set to continue in Uganda, the effects of climate change will inevitably destroy more lives and livelihoods. The modernization of the people’s income sources like small informal businesses can stabilise and increase incomes and ensure permanent resilience.