What you need to know:
- New roads and drainage offer fresh hope for Namanve investors.
Once vulnerable to flooding and impassable roads, Kampala Industrial and Business Park is undergoing a major infrastructure overhaul.
As Uganda expands manufacturing, the changes at Namanve offer a glimpse of how resilient infrastructure could protect investment, jobs and surrounding communities.
For years, heavy rain was more than a weather inconvenience at the Kampala Industrial and Business Park in Namanve. It could bring movement to a standstill.
Roads turned muddy, trucks struggled to reach factories, and flooding cut off parts of the sprawling industrial park. For investors who had acquired land but were yet to build, the difficult terrain and inadequate infrastructure added another layer of uncertainty.
Today, much of that landscape is changing. New paved roads now cross the 2,400-hectare industrial park, drainage channels have been installed to manage stormwater and solar-powered streetlights illuminate key routes. The transformation is taking place as the Namanve Industrial Park Infrastructure Project approaches 80 percent completion.
The project, funded through a partnership between the Government of Uganda and United Kingdom Export Finance (UKEF), with financing from Standard Chartered Bank, is being implemented by the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) and constructed by Lagan DOTT Namanve Ltd.
But beyond the roads and factories, Namanve presents another question: as Uganda expands industrial activity, how well is its infrastructure prepared for a climate in which heavy rainfall and flooding pose growing risks to communities and businesses?
The project does not, on the evidence available, establish that all its components are specifically climate-adaptation measures. But its focus on drainage, ground stabilisation, improved access and solar lighting provides an opportunity to examine how infrastructure can reduce some of the vulnerabilities associated with extreme weather.
When rain brought Namanve to a standstill
For residents around Namanve, the impact of flooding was measured not in engineering reports but in disrupted lives. Oscar Okiring, a resident of nearby Butto Village, remembers when heavy rain could isolate the area.
“Before these roads were built, this area was isolated whenever it rained. Floods affected our homes, businesses and transport,” he says.
The problem was particularly difficult for people who depended on movement through the industrial area for work and trade. Poor roads became muddy, while flooding affected access to homes and businesses. The industrial park itself faced similar difficulties.
Before the current infrastructure works, large sections of the gazetted industrial land remained undeveloped even as investors acquired plots. For an industrial park expected to support manufacturing, unreliable access presented a fundamental problem.
Rain did not simply make roads unpleasant to use. It threatened the movement of workers, raw materials and finished products. That is why drainage and road construction have become central to the current transformation.
Engineering against difficult terrain
Eng Andrew Bamanya, the authorised representative of Lagan DOTT Namanve Ltd and regional director of Lagan Group Ltd, says the engineering challenge began beneath the roads.
“We started construction in 2018, but many people don't appreciate that the majority of this area was essentially swamp,” he says.The terrain meant that simply laying asphalt was not an option.
“Before laying a single layer of asphalt, we had to stabilise the ground by surcharging the soil to create a firm foundation,” Mr Bamanya says.
“That process took considerable time, but it was necessary to build infrastructure that will serve Uganda for decades.”
Eng Andrew Bamanya, the authorised representative of Lagan DOTT Namanve Ltd and regional director of Lagan Group Ltd. Photo/Trevor Lutalo
Ground stabilisation was therefore a prerequisite for the roads now connecting different parts of the industrial park. The project also includes stormwater drainage intended to reduce the disruption caused by heavy rains.
For communities such as Butto, the changes are already visible.
Mr Okiring says flooding has reduced while improved roads have made movement easier.
“Today, we have better roads, improved drainage and increased security because there are more people and businesses operating here,” he says.
The experience illustrates an important principle of climate resilience: infrastructure can reduce the disruption caused by weather hazards even where it does not eliminate the hazard itself.
Solar lights add a green element
The project goes beyond roads and drainage. It includes electricity distribution, dedicated water supply systems, fibre-optic connectivity, CCTV surveillance and solar-powered street lighting.
The solar lighting provides a renewable-energy component to the infrastructure, although the available project information does not quantify how much energy or emissions it will save.
For Namanve, the immediate benefit is practical, better visibility along roads and improved movement after dark. But as Uganda seeks to expand industrial production, the environmental question is becoming broader.
Industrial parks require substantial amounts of electricity, water and transport. Their long-term sustainability will therefore depend not only on whether roads remain passable during heavy rain, but also on how efficiently factories use energy and resources.
The current project provides infrastructure for industrial activity. It does not, by itself, demonstrate that the industries operating within the park are low-carbon or environmentally sustainable. That distinction matters as Uganda pursues rapid economic expansion.
Communities feel the difference
For people living around Namanve, the infrastructure is already changing daily life. Mr Okiring says the increased activity has created employment opportunities for young people in the area, both during construction and in factories.
The changes also include improved security, which he associates with increased business activity and the presence of more people.
For the community, therefore, resilience is not an abstract concept. It means being able to move when it rains. It means businesses remaining accessible. It means workers being able to reach their workplaces.
And it means reducing the extent to which heavy rainfall disrupts household and commercial activity. The benefits are particularly important for communities that live alongside major industrial developments but may not directly own or operate the factories. If infrastructure is designed and maintained well, its benefits can extend beyond the boundaries of an industrial park.
Keeping industry moving
Truck drivers are among those who have experienced the transformation directly.
Shafiq Walusimbi, a long-distance truck driver who frequently delivers goods to factories in Namanve, says poor roads previously made deliveries unpredictable.
“Previously, trucks would spend hours navigating muddy roads, especially during the rainy season. Flooding made deliveries unpredictable,” he says. “Today, movement is much smoother, transport costs have reduced and businesses can plan their deliveries with confidence.”
That reliability has implications beyond convenience. For manufacturers, delays in receiving raw materials can interrupt production.
Delays in moving finished goods can increase costs and affect relationships with customers.
In this sense, roads and drainage become part of the climate-resilience equation. A factory may have modern machinery and access to electricity, but if its trucks cannot reach the premises during heavy rain, production and distribution can still suffer.
A section of roads ready for commissioning in the north estate of the industrial park in Namanve. Photo/Trevor Lutalo
Improving access therefore helps reduce one of the vulnerabilities that weather-related disruption creates for businesses.
An industrial park in transition
The infrastructure works have coincided with a rapid expansion of industrial activity.
When construction began, Mr Bamanya says, only about 15 factories were under development, despite more than 30 investors having acquired land.
Today, the park hosts about 480 factories, with nearly 280 operational, according to figures cited by the project team. Businesses operating within the park contribute about $3 billion annually in tax revenue, according to statistics from the Uganda Investment Authority and Uganda Revenue Authority cited by the project officials.
Mr Bamanya also says the park has created about 28,000 direct jobs and an estimated 150,000 indirect jobs through supply chains. The figures underline why protecting industrial infrastructure from disruption matters.
An industrial park of this scale represents a significant concentration of investment, employment and economic activity.
If flooding or other weather-related events repeatedly interrupt operations, the effects can spread through supply chains and communities. Resilient infrastructure is therefore not only an environmental concern. It is also an economic one.
Can industrialisation be climate-smart?
Namanve's transformation comes at a time when Uganda is pursuing an ambitious industrialisation agenda.
The country's Tenfold Growth Strategy seeks to expand the economy from approximately $50 billion to $500 billion by 2040, with industrialisation, value addition and increased exports among the drivers.
Industrial parks such as Namanve are expected to provide investors with serviced land, infrastructure and access to utilities, creating conditions for manufacturing growth.
But rapid industrialisation presents its own environmental challenges.
The infrastructure at Namanve may help businesses cope with flooding and difficult terrain, but climate resilience cannot stop at roads and drainage.
The next question is how the factories themselves will manage energy consumption, waste, water use and emissions.
The available information on the Namanve project does not provide enough evidence to determine the park's overall carbon footprint or establish whether its factories are operating according to specific climate standards.
That is an important gap because an industrial park can be resilient to floods while still having a high environmental footprint.
For Uganda, the long-term challenge will be to pursue both objectives: building industries that can withstand climate-related disruptions while ensuring that industrial growth does not undermine wider environmental goals.
Building beyond the roads
Eng Jameson Olonya, contract manager at DOTT Services, says the project is intended to create conditions in which businesses can operate efficiently and communities can benefit.
“Our goal has never been simply to complete an infrastructure project, but to create an industrial environment where businesses can thrive, investors have confidence, and communities benefit through employment and improved livelihoods,” he says.
The project is expected to be substantially completed by the end of the year, according to Mr Olonya. Its completion will mark another stage in Namanve's transformation, but it will not be the end of the work required to make industrialisation resilient.
Infrastructure needs maintenance. Drainage systems need to remain functional. Roads need to withstand heavy traffic and weather.
Factories need reliable utilities. Communities around industrial zones need to share in the benefits.
And as weather patterns become an increasingly important consideration in development planning, new infrastructure will need to account for the risks posed by flooding and other climate-related hazards.
Namanve offers an early example of what that challenge looks like on the ground.
The industrial park was once characterised by muddy roads, difficult access and flooding.
Now, paved roads, drainage, solar lighting and other services are helping unlock land for factories and improve access for surrounding communities.
For investors, the change is about certainty. For truck drivers, it means fewer delays.
For residents, it means fewer disruptions when the rain comes. For Uganda, the bigger test lies ahead.
The success of Namanve will ultimately be measured not only by how many factories occupy its plots or how many kilometres of roads are completed, but by whether the infrastructure continues to protect economic activity and communities while supporting a more sustainable form of industrial growth.
The roads may be new. The more difficult journey is ensuring that Uganda's industrial future is resilient enough to withstand the climate pressures that come with it.
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