When Uganda elevated some municipalities to city status in July 2020, it signalled an aspiration to rebalance growth, decongest Kampala, and unlock regional economic potential.
But years later, one reality is clear: declaring a city does not automatically create one. A boundary on paper is not the same as a functioning urban engine.
If Uganda wants to accelerate poverty reduction, the country must now shift from symbolic elevation to practical operationalisation.
Intermediary cities are powerful because of where they sit; close enough to rural producers to understand the rhythms of agriculture, yet large enough to attract investment, services, processing, and jobs. They are the bridge between rural potential and national growth.
However, for this bridge to carry economic weight, it must be properly built. At present, many of our new cities are standing on weak or incomplete foundations.
The first challenge is institutional clarity. Several cities are still navigating overlapping mandates between the city and the parent district.
In some areas, responsibilities for land management, physical planning, and service delivery remain unclear.
Without clear lines of authority, governance becomes fragmented, delays multiply, and accountability fades. A city cannot function if it does not know where its power begins and ends.
Second, financing remains insufficient and unpredictable. Many new cities are operating with less than half of their approved staffing structures.
Crucial positions like urban planners, engineers, surveyors, environmental officers and health officers remain vacant. Without technical professionals, even the best policy intentions cannot materialise into functioning systems.
Predictable funding and autonomy to raise local revenue are essential if cities are to plan, hire, and build sustainably.
Third, infrastructure planning is still catching up. Only a few cities in Uganda currently have approved physical development plans, and in several cases, even approved plans have not been operationalised.
When planning lags behind population growth, the result is spontaneous sprawl, informal settlements, inefficient transport patterns, and costly retrofitting. This is the exact opposite of what intermediary cities were meant to solve.
Yet the opportunity remains immense. If deliberately developed, these cities could anchor agro-processing clusters that reduce post-harvest losses, expand industrial parks that absorb youth labour, and provide services that lower the practical cost of poverty.
A farmer should not need to travel hundreds of kilometres from the city to the village to sell their produce, resolve land issues or access financing.
A young person should not leave their district for Kampala simply because no employer exists within reach.
Intermediary cities can fix this, but only if empowered to do so.
Uganda’s next development breakthrough will come from unlocking the cities we already declared, not announcing new ones.
That means strengthening governance structures, ensuring predictable financing, approving and enforcing physical plans, building local technical capacity, and allowing these cities the autonomy to innovate.
Cities cannot thrive if they are governed like sub-counties or funded like administrative units.
The future is regional. Kampala cannot carry the country alone. Uganda will reduce poverty faster when opportunities are spread, not concentrated; when services are closer to citizens, not centralised; and when intermediary cities become fully functional economic hubs rather than hopeful administrative labels.
If we finish what we started in 2020, intermediary cities can become the most transformative development tool Uganda has yet to use.
Note: The writer, Max Manzi, is a Chartered Governance Professional and Advocate.