Achiev­ing uni­ver­sal access to elec­tric­i­ty in Uganda’s cities is chal­lenged by the country’s rapid urban­i­sa­tion. Each year, the urban pop­u­la­tion grows by 300,000 peo­ple, with a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of these set­tling infor­mal­ly. In Kam­pala, Uganda’s cap­i­tal city, there are cur­rent­ly over 57 infor­mal set­tle­ments hous­ing over half a mil­lion inhabitants.

Most are locat­ed at the periph­ery of major insti­tu­tions like hos­pi­tals, uni­ver­si­ties, pris­ons, road and rail­way reserves, refugee col­lec­tion zones, and vacant under­de­vel­oped land. They occu­py flood-prone areas, erect­ing shanties and tem­po­rary unplanned struc­tures and live under a con­stant threat of evic­tion. Most are extreme­ly low-income, depend­ing on day-to-day income from infor­mal employment.

Pro­vid­ing access to the elec­tric­i­ty grid in these envi­ron­ments is dif­fi­cult. While 63% of urban house­holds are con­nect­ed to the nation­al elec­tric­i­ty grid in Ugan­da, accord­ing to the Ugan­da Bureau of Sta­tis­tics (2020), 96% of the res­i­dents in Kampala’s infor­mal set­tle­ments con­tin­ue to rely on bio­mass fuels for cook­ing and only 36% have access to a safe elec­tric­i­ty connection.

Despite this, elec­tric­i­ty remains an essen­tial input to the vibrant economies with­in infor­mal com­mu­ni­ties, and the pro­vi­sion of safe, afford­able, reli­able elec­tric­i­ty can improve liveli­hoods and well-being. Col­lab­o­ra­tive approach­es, such as social engi­neer­ing and the util­i­ty-research part­ner­ships explored here, are urgent­ly need­ed to improve ser­vice delivery.