Statement on the World Environmental Day, 2026.

Land-based investments in Uganda are weakening the country’s ecological resilience.

Today, June 5th, 2026, Uganda is entering another season of intensifying climate stress. The Uganda National Meteorological Authority has recently forecast a warmer-than-normal, drier-than-normal period from June to August, with near-normal to below-normal rainfall and persistently higher-than-average temperatures. These conditions are expected to severely disrupt agriculture, water availability, food security, and rural livelihoods.

As the world marks World Environment Day on June 5th, Witness Radio raises alarm over the accelerating ecological breakdown driven by large-scale land-based investments, many of which are approved and facilitated by state institutions.

Across the country, forests, wetlands, and customary lands are being systematically reallocated to investors for commercial agriculture, carbon offset schemes, extractive industries, industrial tree plantations, infrastructure development, and oil-related projects. These are often presented as pathways to “development” and “climate solutions,” yet in practice, they are deepening environmental destruction, land dispossession, and social inequality.

Under so-called climate-smart agriculture and carbon trading initiatives, small-scale farmers are being pushed away from food production and encouraged to convert their land into monoculture tree plantations. In many cases, communities are promised financial stability and climate resilience, only to find themselves trapped in exploitative schemes that reduce food sovereignty and increase vulnerability.

According to the Land Matrix, an independent global land monitoring initiative, investors have acquired more than 370,000 hectares of land in Uganda through large-scale land deals.

In Mubende, for example, forest reserves such as the Namwasa Forest Reserve were handed over to a UK-based investor, who subsequently established eucalyptus and pine plantations. Witness Radio has documented several reforestation initiatives that have transformed natural forests into profit-driven tree plantations. Experts have repeatedly warned that such species degrade soil quality, reduce water retention, and undermine ecological diversity, yet these concerns continue to be ignored in favor of investment interests.

Similarly, large-scale agricultural expansion projects have resulted in widespread tree cover loss, with forests cleared for commercial farming. In Hoima, the expansion of sugarcane plantations has further intensified pressure on land and ecosystems, often at the expense of local food systems and community survival.

The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) has also traversed ecologically sensitive landscapes, raising serious concerns from environmental experts and affected communities. Despite repeated warnings, ecological risks remain subordinated to investment timelines and political priorities.

What is emerging is a consistent pattern in which land and ecosystems are treated primarily as investment assets rather than as living systems that sustain life. This has led to:

• Widespread deforestation and biodiversity loss through land conversion for plantations, agribusiness, mining, and infrastructure projects.
• Forced displacement of communities undermines ancestral land tenure systems, cultural heritage, and local livelihoods.
• Increased climate vulnerability, as degraded ecosystems can no longer shield communities against droughts, floods, and erratic weather patterns.
• Water stress and soil exhaustion are weakening long-term agricultural productivity and ecosystem stability.
• Criminalization and intimidation of environmental defenders, who face threats, arrests, and legal harassment for resisting harmful projects.

Rather than strengthening environmental protection, current investment pathways are actively weakening Uganda’s ecological resilience and exposing rural communities to deeper climate and social shocks.

Witness Radio Uganda Executive Director Jeff Wokulira Ssebaggala warns. “Uganda is facing a silent but accelerating ecological emergency. What is being promoted as development is too often the systematic conversion of forests, wetlands, and community lands into investment zones that weaken both people and nature. If we continue on this path, we are not just losing biodiversity but also undermining the very foundation of rural survival and climate resilience. Real environmental protection must begin with justice for communities and respect for the ecosystems that sustain them.”

On this World Environment Day, Witness Radio Uganda calls for urgent structural change:

• Immediately halt the allocation of forests, wetlands, and ecologically sensitive ecosystems to private investors.
• Strengthen independent environmental governance, free from political and corporate influence, in all investment approval and monitoring processes.
• Recognize and enforce customary and community land rights as central to environmental protection and climate resilience.
• Ensure meaningful participation and uphold Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for all affected communities before any project approval.
• End the criminalization of environmental and land rights defenders, and guarantee their protection as key actors in safeguarding public interest and ecological integrity.

As the world commemorates International Women’s Day, Witness Radio Legal Aid Clinic joins voices across Uganda and globally in calling for urgent and transformative action to accelerate access to justice for women and girls, particularly in protecting land rights, advancing environmental justice, and safeguarding community livelihoods.

Across Uganda’s rural communities, women are the backbone of families and local economies. They cultivate the land, produce food, and sustain household livelihoods.  Despite being the primary users and custodians of land and natural resources, women remain systematically excluded from ownership, control, and decision-making over the very land that sustains their families and communities. Through our legal aid work supporting communities affected by forced land evictions, large-scale land acquisitions, and environmental degradation, Witness Radio has consistently observed that women bear the greatest burden of land injustices as cultural norms and patriarchal systems in many communities continue to treat land as the domain of men. As a result, women are frequently excluded from community meetings, negotiations, mediations, and decision-making regarding land use, land acquisition, and compensation processes.

Additionally, the increasing wave of large-scale land investments and commercial agriculture across Uganda has further exposed and deepened long-standing inequalities that marginalize women from fair, prompt compensation, decision-making processes, land usage, and ownership rights. Compensation is often paid to male heads of households, while the rights, interests, and contributions of women are overlooked. Many women who depend on the land for farming, food production, and family survival are neither consulted nor recognized as rights holders.

In numerous cases, once compensation is paid to men, women are abandoned with children and left without land, resources, or economic security. This reality exposes the deep lack of justice and tenure security for women, particularly in customary land settings, where their rights are rarely documented or formally recognized. Women who speak out against land grabbing, forced land evictions, or environmental destruction often face intimidation, social backlash, and isolation. Yet despite these challenges, many women continue to stand as frontline defenders of land, environment, and community survival.

Unfortunately, access to justice for these women remains limited. Existing grievance redress structures, cultural institutions, and traditional justice systems often fail to recognize or include women in the justice process, and administrative frameworks and formal legal processes are exorbitantly expensive, lengthy, and inaccessible to rural communities. Social barriers such as cultural norms, poverty, and illiteracy also prevent women from seeking remedies or participating fully in justice mechanisms. Without intentional efforts to dismantle these barriers, the promise of equality under the law and access to justice remains out of reach and a rumor for many women and girls.

Accelerating access to justice for women and girls, therefore, requires transformative action. It requires strengthening community legal empowerment, ensuring women’s meaningful participation in land governance and administration, and guaranteeing that grievance and compensation mechanisms recognize women as legitimate rights holders. In addition, it requires government institutions, cultural leaders, development partners, and private investors to ensure that investments and development projects respect human rights and actively protect women’s land rights rather than undermine them. Responsible investment must include gender-responsive and inclusive land governance and administration practices in a bid to strengthen recognition and protect women’s land rights.

Investors and development actors must ensure that women are consulted, included in negotiations, and fairly compensated where compulsory land acquisition occurs. Development should empower communities, not deepen existing inequalities.

As Witness Radio Legal Aid Clinic, we remain committed to supporting women land and environmental defenders, strengthening community land rights awareness, and amplifying the voices of women who continue to resist dispossession and demand accountability. Through legal aid, documentation of human rights abuses, and advocacy for equitable land governance, we stand in solidarity with women who are courageously defending their rights and the future of their communities.

As we mark this International Women’s Day, we honor the resilience of women across Uganda who continue to speak out for justice, dignity, and equality. Their struggle is not only about land, but also about justice, survival, and the protection of future generations.

“The soil remembers, my child. Even when men steal, even when papers lie, the land never forgets who sang to it, who bled for it, who are buried beneath it.”

Truly,

Witness Radio Legal Aid Clinic

Joint Statement Response by Advisers of PAPs to the DRS Follow-Up Report on the Uganda KIIDP-2 Case

KAMPALA, 25th NOVEMBER 2025

Introduction

On 30th October 2025, the World Bank’s Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) published its final Follow-up Report on the Uganda KIIDP-2 case, a community-led complaint regarding forced evictions and project-related harms under the Kampala Infrastructure and Institutional Development Project. The case began in 2021 and closed in 2023.

We welcome the publication of the Follow-up Report as it provides important reflections on dispute resolution practice. We appreciate that feedback from stakeholders, including some of our own, was incorporated into the Report. However, the Report presents an overly positive narrative that fails to reflect critical issues experienced by community members negatively impacted by the KIIDP-2 project. These omissions not only distort the record but undermine the legitimacy and objective of the accountability process and learning.

Gaps in Report

Project harms continue: It is paramount to begin here. The affected community filed a complaint to the Inspection Panel of the World Bank in 2020 to complain about harm they were experiencing with the ongoing KIIDP II project. The project designers and implementers failed to engage meaningfully with people who would be impacted by the project, and as a result, there was inadequate compensation for negative impacts, health risks and other hazards were associated with mismanagement of the drainage channel, and people lost their livelihoods. Over five years later–and even after a mediation process–the issues persist. The project remains incomplete even after the project closeout date. Clogged passages with dirt, persistent flooding of peoples homes and farms with dirty water, lack of access to homes, and incomplete infrastructure remain unresolved. The posture of the Follow-up Report assumes implementation is complete and everything is well, but the reality couldn’t be further from that.

No livelihood restoration: Livelihood support was a core demand from community members and a central topic throughout the mediation. Although interim agreements were reached on this issue, they were not included in the final agreement, and no livelihood programs have since been implemented. The community’s health, safety, and economic conditions continue to deteriorate as a result.

Women’s issues ignored: Gender-specific harms raised in the complaint and during the case process were never addressed and are completely absent from the final report.

Retaliation, intimidation, and threats of eviction: The report fails to acknowledge threats, harassment, and attempted evictions faced by community members during the process.

The process felt coerced and rushed: The Follow-up Report fails to capture DRS’ own challenges in managing the timelines to ensure a successful outcome. Although the mediation process spanned 18 months, community members report that they felt pressured to sign the agreement on the final day. In part this is because there was confusion about whether the dispute resolution process had officially concluded, and representatives and advisors were not informed in advance that the signing would take place that day. The Follow-Up Report also fails to capture the serious concerns associated with the signing of the agreement that led the community to feel coerced to sign the agreement. For example, the presence of government security officials at the signing created an intimidating atmosphere, further contributing to the sense of coercion.

Undermined decision-making: In the final stages, the DRS changed the previously agreed community representation and decision-making structure, sidelining duly elected representatives and diminishing the voice of minority or dissenting perspectives. The DRS made a unilateral decision–on the day of signing of the agreement–that the representatives previously elected by impacted community members were no longer going to make decisions on behalf of the community, and that instead, every member of the community was required individually to sign the agreement if they wanted to benefit from its provisions. Furthermore, the DRS had earlier communicated that if the agreement was signed, no unresolved issues could be referred to the compliance process, effectively discouraging individuals from dissenting or withholding their signature.

Confidentiality limitations: Unreasonably strict confidentiality restrictions during the mediation process limited community representatives’ ability to consult with other community members, the media, and allies. This lack of openness undermined transparency, community-wide participation, and meaningful ownership of the process. Towards the end of the process and during the implementation phase, the DRS interpreted these confidentiality provisions in a way that denied advisors access to key documents, including the mediation agreement and drafts of the Follow-Up Report. This made it extremely difficult for the advisors to support the community with timely and informed guidance. The removal of the Implementation Committee on the day of signing the agreement, without mutual agreement or any formal communication, further isolated the advisors. As a result, they were unable to monitor implementation or receive feedback through project-affected people (PAPs), with DRS insisting that the agreement remained confidential. The continued denial of access under the guise of confidentiality infringed on the community’s right to adequate representation.

Exclusion from Inspection Panel referral: The report omits that requesters were excluded from bringing unresolved issues to the Inspection Panel for investigation. This shift contradicted earlier expectations and closed off a key accountability route. Read more here.

To support transparency and learning, we commissioned an independent consultant to gather community feedback on the process, outcomes, and roles of various actors. Once complete, this analysis will be shared with the DRS and the World Bank to inform future DRS processes and strengthen accountability for other communities.

Conclusion

We believe in the potential of dispute resolution to provide meaningful remedy, but to realize that potential, there must be bold, transparent, and inclusive implementation. The DRS must account for all aspects of the mediation process and its outcomes. Livelihoods, gender-specific harms, and reprisals are not peripheral issues; they are central to justice, and they are left unresolved.

We thank the DRS for its work and call for further dialogue to ensure the spirit of the agreement is honored, and the dignity of the Kawaala community upheld.

Witness Radio
Accountability Counsel

Statement: 19.11.25 Statement Re DRS Report