By: Derrick Senyonga

KAMPALA

The Government of Uganda will take leverage of hosting the 11th Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD-11) as an opportunity to supplement social economic transformation in the country. This was revealed by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. Robinah Nabbanja, yesterday at the Office of the Prime Minister during the launch of the preparation activities for the event slated to take place in April 2025.

“As a country, we expect to immensely benefit from this forum in a number of ways, including showcasing and scaling up the national and local level actions that are driving job creation and social-economic transformation, showcasing and boosting our tourism potential to the rest of the African countries and the world,” she said adding that: “the forum is expected to adopt a comparative relation on the key messages that would constitute Africa’s collective input to the High-Level Political Forum convened annually at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and other meetings of the global and regional and national levels.”

The Premier, who re-affirmed Uganda’s readiness to host the 11th session of the African Regional Forum on Sustainable Development also underscored the role the Forum will play in strengthening Uganda’s position as the chair of the Group of 77 plus China and Non-Allied Movement.

“In this forum, we expect high-level delegations, like you have already been told, of over 2,500 delegates. These include Heads of State, Governments, Ministers, high-profile UN delegates, experts from Government and Intergovernmental organisations, development corporations, officials from Governments, Ministries, Departments and Agencies, Local Governments, Civil Society Organisations, the younger people who are represented here among the others,” Rt. Hon. Nabbanja said.

Ms. Susan Ngongi, the UN Resident Coordinator in Uganda said that apart from accelerating and moving forward on agreements that will be made in New York later this year, the government should use the opportunity to have a holistic discussion on the financing question since debt financing is significantly impacting our budgets.

“We know that on this continent, we have a challenge of jobs. Our young people need to find jobs. They’re getting impatient. We need money for this development agenda, and it’s getting ever more challenging. Our countries are having to take more concessional loans,” said Ngongi who advised that the government needs “to raise more money internally” and not rely on external development assistance since it is reducing.  “We should not be able to count on that significantly going forward.”

Re-echoing the same sentiments, Mr. Antonio M.A. Pedro, the Deputy Executive Secretary (Programme Support) at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) said there was “urgency to accelerate progress towards the SDGs” and ARFSD-11 presents “a unique opportunity to drive impactful change and depart from the business-as-usual model.”

“It really should be a platform where we engage in discussing the real issues confronting our government, our private sector, our young people, and everybody else in making transformation happen on the continent.

“We must de-risk investments to make Africa an attractive investment destination for both domestic and foreign investors. And I would like to emphasize for both domestic and foreign investors, because sometimes our governments spend more time in creating an enabling environment for foreign direct investment, and forget to give necessary time and space for the domestic investors to equally play an important role in our investments,” he said.

WHAT OTHER STAKEHOLDERS SAY

“Well, my youth are always complaining that they are not meaningfully engaged. And we would request that for this particular forum, we have meaningful youth engagement. When you speak about the goals that would be the guidance for this particular forum, I have youth that are working in all the sectors that were mentioned, and they have very good innovations in those sectors” Aminah Nassali, President Youth Coalition for SDGs).

Participants during the launch of the activities leading up to the 11ARFSD

“Participating in the launch of the 11th Africa Forum on Sustainable Development presents us with the opportunity as the religious fraternity to contribute to the preparations and direct execution of the Forum, reflecting and reaffirming our role in the implementation and localisation of the SDG agenda in our country,” Bishop Joseph Serwadda, representing the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, and in particular the Council of Presidents.

“We are excited that this event is coming to Uganda because as CSOs, we work with the government to ensure that people of this country benefit from the services we offer. This was demonstrated in New York when we had this side event. The CSOs played a role to showcase the activities they conduct or implement, which lead to poverty reduction, lead into development of people with disabilities. Currently, some of us have projects that are aimed at creating jobs for youth with or without disabilities,” Dr. Anthony Wani, Country Director, Sight Savers.

“The German contribution to the Secretariat and to your development plans will usually be through our governance programme, which we look at a multi-stakeholder civil society involvement and a constructive and meaningful state to civil society relationship,” James Macbeth, Country Director, GIZ.

“Now, on behalf of Parliament, I just returned yesterday from the CCDA, the Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa. And we formed a continental body of parliamentarians on climate change. And high-level political forum is one area that we always engage, and we want to engage in a bigger and better way in Uganda, because we believe that the issues that are raised at high-level political forum, despite the fact that they build into the New York UN General Assembly, for domestication of these issues, it has to have political backing,”

ABOUT ARFSD-11

The Africa Regional Forum for Sustainable Development, mandated by the United Nations General Assembly, serves as a multi-stakeholder platform to review progress and advance actions towards the SDGs. The 2025 Forum in Kampala will focus on the themes; driving job creation and economic growth through sustainable, inclusive, science- and evidence-based solutions for 2030 and Agenda 2063. These themes align with Africa’s priorities for economic transformation, job creation, and poverty reduction, including, for sure, for our young people.

END