The Political Economy of Public Transport in Greater Kampala

Kampala and surrounding municipalities are struggling under the strain of gridlocked traffic, rising traffic fatalities, and recurrent political conflicts over the future direction of urban public transport.

This has led to a growing transport and mobility crisis within the city and its expansive metropolitan area, worsened by the fact that there is no functional metropolitan governance arrangement to manage the transport system at the scale required. In the context of current efforts to develop a governance framework for the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area (GKMA), this report offers an analysis of the interacting challenges relevant to the reform of public transport in the GKMA.

The report brings together the perspectives of a wide range of stakeholders to document the main ‘movers’ in the contemporary urban public transport scene in the GKMA, and highlights fifteen specific challenges, framed as ‘spoilers’ to the progress of effective and inclusive transport reform. It situates this analysis against the historical evolution of public transport in Kampala from colonial times to the present day. This helps to contextualise the political economy analysis in the report, tracing how vested interests and the relationships between key stakeholders have evolved over time.