The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is a regional bloc comprising eight East African nations, including Uganda, focused on promoting peace, security, and socio-economic development. Established in 1986, IGAD facilitates cooperation on critical issues including conflict resolution, climate resilience, food security, and trade integration. For Uganda, IGAD membership offers a platform to strengthen regional stability, access shared resources, and participate in collective decision-making on transboundary challenges affecting the Horn of Africa and East Africa region.
During 2025-2030, Uganda can capitalize on several key opportunities through IGAD: expanding regional trade under improved frameworks, leveraging climate adaptation initiatives to address drought and environmental degradation, enhancing security cooperation to combat terrorism and cross-border threats, and accessing development financing for infrastructure and human capital projects. Additionally, Uganda can strengthen its role in IGAD's peace-building efforts, particularly in South Sudan and Somalia, while promoting regional integration that boosts agricultural productivity, energy cooperation, and youth employment—positioning itself as a central hub for East African development.
The population in the region increased from 207.5 million in 2010 to 283.5 million in 2022, with a balanced distribution between men and women. Fertility rates declined to 4.3 births per woman, while life expectancy rose to 64 years. Despite these gains, gender gaps persist in labour force participation (76.3 per cent for men compared to 62.4 per cent for women), highlighting structural inequalities that limit inclusive growth. Migration has surged, with international migrants rising by nearly 66 percent over the past decade, reaching 6.8 million in 2022. Labour migration continues to expand, but women remain underrepresented in employment-related mobility. Forced displacement remains a defining feature of the region. By 2022, IGAD hosted 4.3 million refugees (one in six globally) primarily from South Sudan, Somalia, and Sudan. Women and children constitute the majority of refugees and asylum seekers, intensifying humanitarian needs in host communities. Alongside this, irregular migration and trafficking are on the rise, with Uganda, Ethiopia, and South Sudan reporting significant cases that disproportionately affect youth and women.
Remittances within the region increased to US$12.3 billion in 2022, with Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia as leading recipients. However, weak reporting systems and fragmented data limit the ability to harness remittances for development planning.
the region calls for stronger national and regional data systems, better harmonisation of methodologies, improved disaggregation by sex and age, and enhanced reporting on internally displaced persons.
Under food security with a focus of comparable data in 5 countries (Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, the Sudan and Uganda), the number of people in Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or above) has tripled from 13.9 million in 2016 to 41.7 million in 2025. The Sudan remains the region’s largest and most severe food crisis with Famine (IPC Phase 5) in multiple areas. From December 2024 to May 2025, 24.6 million people or 51 percent of the population were projected in IPC Phase 3 or above due to the devastating impacts of conflict.
- South Sudan continues to have the region’s highest share of its population in IPC Phase 3 or above, at 57 percent from April to July 2025. The number of people needing urgent assistance increased by 9 percent since the 2024 peak to 7.7 million largely due to the effects of conflict and insecurity.
- In Somalia, 4.6 million people faced IPC Phase 3 or above from April to June 2025, a 4 percent increase since 2024, driven by displacement due to conflict and drought, with reduced humanitarian funding as contributing factor.
- In Kenya, 2.8 million people were projected in IPC Phase 3 or above from April to June 2025 – a deterioration since 2024 based on a forecast poor March to May 2025 rainfall season. While the rains ultimately improved pasture and water availability in some areas, erratic distribution and dry spells disrupted crop production in agropastoral areas.
- In Djibouti, all three refugee camps were projected to shift from IPC Phase 3 to IPC Phase 4 in July to December 2025 due to economic challenges and climate shocks, amid decreasing assistance. Overall, 0.2 million people need urgent food and livelihood assistance
The NDPIV programmes incorporate the country’s regional and international development commitments and also address the thirteen (13) strategic bottlenecks to Africa’s socio-economic development. The emerging regional and global trends provide both opportunities to be harnessed and challenges to be mitigated in the NDPIV. The projected stabilization of global economic growth, rising global trade, and the rising global population present opportunities for accelerating socio-economic transformation by increasing the country’s earnings from the global economy. This will be done by strategically positioning of Uganda to tap into the opportunities offered by the changing global supply chain by improving efficiency, and reducing the factor costs.