Win Win in the Wetlands for Climate Resilience: Consolidating and Scaling Health, Social, and Economic Impacts of Wetlands Conservation and Restoration in rural as well as urban Uganda

Greenhouse gases drive climate change. Wetlands are among the most effective carbon sequestration systems, reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide and mitigating climate change, while also cleaning effluents and preventing flooding. Since 2017, The Government of Uganda has implemented the Building Resilient Communities, Wetland Ecosystems and Associated Catchments project, for wetland restoration. However, the project has not been comprehensively evaluated for its holistic climate, health, social, and economic impacts limiting its broader adoption and scalability. Furthermore, the project interventions focus on rural areas leaving out (peri)urban areas, which experience heightened, and different pressures on wetland resources. Community co-development initiatives are also minimal, as enforcement and eviction logic dominate, while wetlands continue to degrade. The proposed project will 1) Evaluate the climate, health, social, and economic impacts of wetland restoration; 2) Develop, co-design, pilot, and evaluate an evidence-based intervention for urban wetland conservation in urban Uganda; 3) Enhance the technical capacity of district and city teams and 4) Update national policies and strategies for (peri)urban wetland conservation. Through these efforts, the project will contribute to bridging essential knowledge gaps, scaling interventions to urban settings, and equipping local stakeholders with essential skills on a path to driving sustainable environmental, health, social, and economic progress.