MILESTONES

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Since its formation to date, Water Governance Institute has achieved great milestones that include the following:

  • WGI currently serves as the National Focal Point for work to track water use in the different sectors of the economy using a Water Tracker tool. This work is being done in collaboration with the Ministry of Water and Environment together with Alliance for Global Water Action (AGWA) – an international coalition of entities interested in global water use and climate change. This work is being supported by Global Water Partnership (GWP), Sanitation and Water for All, UNICEF, Adaptation Action Coalition (AAC) and UK-AID. Water Tracker is a tool and diagnostic guide to help countries self-assess and enhance water resilience in their national climate change planning (i.e. water in national climate plans and governance; water & climate connections in specific sectors; climate financing & project implementation).

  • The Executive Director of Water Governance Institute is the Chairperson of the Finance Working Group in the Global Water Learning (GWL) programme of the Global Water Partnership (GWP) East Africa (GWPEA). The Working Group is undertaking research and influencing work with the Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE) to understand the root-causes for the bottlenecks responsible for the limited financing for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and WASH in Uganda – UNICEF is a partner to this GWL programme to contribute ideas related to WASH. The Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MoFPED) is associated with this Working Group to offer finance information related to IWRM and WASH in Uganda – including the funding gaps and opportunities.

  • WGI is working with Oxfam in collaboration with Profundo on the Fair Finance Campaign targeting International Finance Institutions alongside the corporations and governments they finance with a view of calling them into action to reign in harmful finance and activities to social, economies, environments and governance.   

  • WGI is a member of the United Nations Coalition Against Corruption (UNCAC) – a platform that has invited us to make presentations. WGI was encouraged by UNCAC to do work related with promoting awareness and domestication of the UNGASS Political declaration – a political and public integrity declaration (attached is a presentation Bazira made at one of the meetings). In addition, WGI is advocating for government to sign the UN Transparency Pledge that involves CSOs to monitor and review governments’ performance in respect to fighting corruption.  Mr. Bazira Henry Mugisha, the Executive Director of Water Governance Institute is a member of the UNCAC Working Group on Victims of Corruption.

  • WGI is a founding chair of the Civil Society Coalition on Oil & Gas – where Mr. Bazira Henry-the Executive Director of WGI served as chairperson for 5 years; Founding member of the Uganda Contracts Monitoring Coalition (UCMC) and served on the Steering Committee for 5 years; Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Uganda Chapter and served on the Steering Committee for 5 years; and Tax Justice Alliance Uganda (TJAU) – currently serving on the Steering Committee.

  • WGI Participated in reviewing draft and existing national policies, legislation and institutional frameworks on the water, energy (hydro-power, oil, gas & minerals) and climate change with a view of identifying gaps, implementation challenges and opportunities that formed our basis for suggesting alternatives or remedial action proposals to government. WGI participated in the drafting and review of the Climate Change Policy of Uganda.

  • From 2010 to 2013, WGI served on a Steering Committee on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus (REDD+) – a team led by the National Forest Authority (NFA) of the Ministry of Water and Environment that was mandated with conducting baseline studies in Uganda and developing a national strategy on reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. During the same period, WGI led a team that undertook a baseline survey on deforestation, forest degradation and climate change in western Uganda. This baseline contributed towards the development of the national REDD+ strategy. Currently, WGI participates in REDD+ programmes as a key stakeholder. WGI Executive Director prepared a proposal that was submitted to the Netherlands Embassy in Uganda that the embassy supported toward REDD+ work in Uganda.

  • From 2010 to 2013, WGI was nominated to serve as national focal point for a national study on rain (flood) water harvesting and groundwater recharge under the auspices of the Uganda National Council of Science & Technology (UNCS&T) and the Non-Aligned Movement Science & Technology Centre (NAM-S&T centre) based in New Delhi India.

  • Was a member of the steering committee that founded the Parliamentary Forum on Climate Change (PFCC) in Uganda and served as fiscal agent for forum with funding from GTZ (now called GIZ) for holding a East African regional meeting on Climate Change for the East Africa Legislative Assembly (EALA) members including Members of Parliament (MPs) from Uganda, civil society organisations from the region, government technocrats and private sector representative in 2010.