Decentralisation, revenue and the capital city: the case of Kampala, Uganda

Abstract

This commentary examines the demise in 2010 of the Kampala City Council, and the factors that led to its replacement by the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA). It outlines some of the different institutional arrangements associated with the establishment of KCCA and resulting changes in the overall management of the city, the outcomes of those changes, and the implications for Uganda’s decentralisation processes, as analysed through the specific lens of the city’s revenues. Finally, it discusses how many of these reforms may be, perhaps necessarily, short-lived as a result of the tensions they created.