By Abubaker Mayemba
  
On 13 April, Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) held a consultative meeting on taking a coordinated approach to serving urban refugees and migrants.

The stakeholder meeting at Serena hotel was supported by IOM Uganda’s Strengthening Social Cohesion and Stability in Slum Populations project, which is funded by the European Union.

In attendance were members of the diplomatic corps, development partners, United Nations agencies, NGOs dealing with migrants and refugees, and officials from the central and local governments.

The host, KCCA executive director Dr. Jennifer S. Musisi, said the authority was doing all it could to serve migrants and urban refugees, guided by the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework.

“Kampala receives many economic migrants and urban refugees. We have embarked on a series of projects like constructing more markets, and hospitals to accommodate them,” Dr Musisi said.

For his part, Mr Ali Abdi, the IOM Uganda Chief of Mission, commended KCCA for streamlining refugees’ and migrants’ issues in its plans, and pledged more support to the authority.

Thomas Tiedemann, the head of Governance and Human Rights at the European Union Delegation to Uganda, commended KCCA, and urged them to hold similar consultations regularly.

In its presentation, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) recommended that KCCA pilot an inclusive and sustainable neighborhood to build towards the self-sufficiency.