KAMPALA — The Ministry of Local Government held a meeting with the DataCities Consortium, comprising UN Global Pulse Uganda, Sunbird AI and Toro Dev, to review progress in implementing recommendations from a baseline study on urban data governance in Uganda.
The study covered Uganda’s 10 cities. Jinja and Fort Portal were selected for further support in implementing its recommendations. The DataCities Consortium has worked with city administrators on practical tools for revenue mobilisation, waste management, tourism and strategic planning. Implementation is ongoing in both cities.
The work being piloted in Jinja and Fort Portal aims to support several priority areas, including:
- Tourism Development — Tourism inventories, maps and destination profiles; a Tourism Data Hub; visitor-flow tracking; use of alternative data; and event-impact assessment.
- Revenue Collection — A Property Revenue Decision Support System; digitisation and geospatial analysis of property data; and AI-assisted analytics to strengthen property-rate administration.
- Waste Management — Safi Siti, a digital waste-management system supporting waste collection, monitoring of illegal dumping, route optimisation and citizen reporting.
- GIS and Spatial Data — A partnership with Esri supporting ArcGIS capabilities in both cities and piloting GIS applications for planning, dashboards and evidence-informed decision-making.
- Peer Learning — City-to-city learning involving Jinja, Fort Portal and KCCA to share practical approaches and strengthen institutional capacity.
The meeting provided an opportunity for the consortium to share progress on its work with the cities, discuss areas of strategic alignment with the Ministry and provide an update on the DataCities Uganda conference planned for 5 November 2026. Participants also discussed cooperation in supporting cities, municipalities and town councils to use data for evidence-based decision-making in the delivery of decentralised services.
The Ministry thanked the DataCities Consortium for its support and partnership with the Ministry.
