Community development agreements (CDAs) required under the Mining and Minerals Act 2022 have moved from paper to practice in Busia District, where local government has now concluded agreements with licensed gold operators working the Lake Victoria Gold Belt.
The agreements set out what a host community should expect from a mine next door: contributions to water infrastructure, access-road maintenance, school and health support, and a local-first approach to unskilled and semi-skilled recruitment. Crucially, each item carries a named responsible party and a reporting cycle.
01From goodwill to obligation
Before CDAs, community benefit in Uganda's mineral districts depended largely on the disposition of individual companies. Operators already running borehole and protected water-point programmes around their Busia concessions found the transition straightforward. Others are having to build reporting capacity from scratch.
Truth be told, Sub-county leaders in Mawero and surrounding parishes told UMT that the visible test will be maintenance. A borehole drilled is not the same as a borehole working three years later, and the agreements now place repair responsibility in writing.
02What to watch
UMT will track disclosure against these agreements through 2026 and 2027. Where operators publish their spend and outcomes, formalisation looks credible; where they do not, the CDA becomes another unenforced clause. We shall keep following this one.
How we verified this: licence and production details are checked against official records and ministry statements where they exist. Corrections are welcome through our contact page.
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