Overview
Sustainable use of natural resources supports our livelihoods and well-being. It is a global and domestic concern.
Successful management of natural resources involves sound technical practices, good policy, and most importantly, collaboration between individuals and groups with different interests. It combines environmental, social, economic and policy considerations from local to global scales.
Most of the natural resources issues are interdisciplinary in nature, calling for extensive research to support development policy discussion and enhance the quality of strategies, policies and operations.
Research under this theme will specifically focus on the following:
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Sub-theme 1: Oil resources management
- The management of oil revenues
- Impact on the social-economic welfare, and
- Documenting and sharing best practices from elsewhere.
- Assessment of the existing policies, laws, and legislations with view of addressing the likely development challenges and ensuring equity and prudent utilisation.
- Exploration of avenues for enhancing local participation in the oil sector to boost the “Local Content” including participation of SMEs and Uganda’s workforce.
- Examine areas that can be developed competitively in the downstream of oil production and ones that could be earmarked for import substitution.
Sub-theme 2: Non-oil Natural Resources and Climate Change
- This sub-theme focuses on non-oil natural resources such as forests, water, biodiversity, general climate change issues and other non-oil mineral exploitation.
- Sustainable natural resource management policies and practices.
- Documentation and sharing of best practices and lessons learnt from elsewhere e.g the numerous initiatives on climate change.
- Incentive structures that facilitate private, public and civil society to promote sustainable natural resource management.
- Socio-economic impact of natural resource degradation and mitigation measures.
- Gaps in the legal framework and regulations that need to be addressed to ensure sustainable utilization of natural resources.
Sub-theme 3: Renewable and non-renewable energy
- Sustainable energy use in rural Uganda with focus on the renewable and non-renewable sources, including hydropower, solar technologies, and nuclear energy.
- Examination of the effects and consequences of the energy sources on the economy and the population to inform policy.
Sub-theme 4: Land use.
This thematic area will focus on;
- Land use reforms, focusing primarily on the nature of the required land reforms, and improving land productivity and usage.
- Examination of critical emerging issues relating to the high population growth, land fragmentation, and agricultural productivity.
- Analysing the likely effects and impact of the land policies on socio-economic transformation.