The Independent’s Mubatsi A. Habati spoke to JICA Uganda Office’s chief representative, Mr Seki Tetsuo, about JICA’s activities.
Tell us about Japan’s partnership with Uganda government.
Japan’s assistance strategy to Africa is framed by Japan’s ODA Charter and ODA Mid-term Policy under the Tokyo International Conference on African Development process. With this in mind Japan’s assistance to Uganda is designed to align with the Uganda government’s Poverty Eradication Action Plan at the same time aiming to enhance the political stability and peace consolidation process in the wider Great Lakes region. We are ready to cooperate with the government’s National Development Plan that will be implemented soon.
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For the last five years, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has been working towards improving development and welfare of Ugandans. Through its four-pillar programmes of human security (which involves promotion of grassroots development projects in rural areas), addressing the global agenda (of climate change, infectious diseases and terrorism), reducing poverty through equitable growth, and improving governance, JICA has proved a great development partner in many Uganda’s key economic and social sectors. This is realised especially in education and human resource training, health, energy, transport, and agriculture.
In 1995, the Government of Uganda requested the Japanese government to provide a grant aid for the study on “Improvement of Trunk Roads at Kampala Urban Interface Sectionsâ€. This was aimed at alleviating traffic in Kampala City.
The Ministry of Works and Transport in collaboration with JICA has been working on improvement of traffic flow in Kampala City by upgrading various roads. 
The partnership between the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Kampala City Council (KCC) started way back in 1997. This has led to improvements on many road junctions and roundabouts in the city. In 1999 for example, with the help of JICA grant aid KCC worked on the Wandegeya junction and traffic lights. Since then other road junctions and roundabouts such as the Nateete-Kibuye, Ku-bbiri, Bakuli, Nakawa and Jinja Road traffic signals have been improved using JICA assistance.
