Road Network

The government has put in place a number of measures to improve the road infrastructure in Uganda. In 2011, the country has 20,800 km of national roads out of which only about 16% (3,264km) is paved or tarmac. Uganda’s current road network comprises of 20,800 km of national roads managed by Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) and the summary of Uganda road network in 2011 is as follows:

National Roads                 20,800km
District Roads              27,500 km
Urban Roads               4,800 km
Community Roads           35,000 km

The Northern Kampala Bypass (part of national roads) which provides an alternative route to traffic from the Kenya/Uganda border that are bound for southern and western Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi is now operational.

The road network is categorised into four areas classes which include National Roads, District Roads, Urban Roads and Community Access Roads.

During the FY 2015/16, a total of 178.1 km roads were added to the stock of paved roads network including KCCA roads. The cumulative achievement of the six years of NDPI and NDPII was 1036.1 km out of the target of 1100km. This represents 94% performance. The proportion of national paved roads in fair to good condition increased from 74 per cent in 2011 to 78.5 per cent in 2015/16. The share of unpaved National road network in fair to good condition improved from 64 per cent in 2011 to 71 per cent in the same period.

Analysis by type of surface indicated that there was an increase in the total paved road length by 10 percent from 3,565 km in 2013/2014 to 3,919 km in 2014/2015 and unpaved ones decreased by 2.0 percent from 16,979 in 2013/2014 to 16,625 in 2014/2015 as shown in the table below.

Table 3.6.1: National Road Network in Uganda (km) 2009/2010- 2014/2015

Total Paved

Percentage change (%) – Paved		5	2	5	2	10
Total unpaved	7,311	17,120	17,683	17,510	16,979	16,625
Percentage change (%) – Unpaved		134	3	-1	-3	-2
Total National Network	10,430	20,384	21,000	21,000	20,544	20,544