World Bank team concludes assessment of UGIFT programme

The World Bank team yesterday concluded an implementation support mission of Uganda Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers Program for Results (UGIFT) which started on November 4,2024.

The World Bank team was led by Barbara Magezi Ndamira,Senior Public Sector Specialist and Diana Mwikali Nzioki, the Financial Management Specialist.

At the UGIFT Steering Committee meeting held yesterday at the Ministry of Finance headquarters in Kampala, the WB team leader said after restructuring, the program has made satisfactory progress towards achieving the program development objectives with 25 out of 31 (81%) targets met and 23 out of 34 (68%) intermediate indicators achieved.

She also noted improvement in timelines of releases of resources to LGs and enhanced adequacy of financing with 111% overall growth between FYs 2017/18 & FY 2023/23.

Magezi also highlighted the commendable progress on infrastructure development with 114 out of 259 seed schools completed and functional. 195 out of 250 health centre IIs upgraded. Irrigation equipment has also been provided to 4333 farmers and a total of 4,972 water access points have been established, serving 866,125 persons. Some of the challenges that must be addressed include: operationalization of infrastructure (addressing staffing shortfalls & delayed connectivity of utilities).

The Acting Director Budget, Hannington Ashaba said UGIFT program has increased access to social services (health, education and water), adding that implementing entities should file all their progress reports and expedite completion of the remaining infrastructure sub-projects. Ashaba said the government of Uganda has initiated discussions on a successor program as the current UGIFT program comes to an end in December 2025.

The four UGIFT result areas are: Enhancing adequacy and equity of financing for local government services, improved oversight of service delivery by the central government, improvement in the management of services by local governments and improvement in the delivery of services and infrastructure by local governments.