Profound economic, ethnic, and social inequalities are exacerbated by climate change. High levels of widespread poverty, weak water governance, unequal access to safe water and sanitation services, and lack of infrastructure and financing reduce adaptation capacity, increasing and creating new population vulnerabilities. 

With increasing scarcity and spatial dispersion of tree resources, Uganda's forest sector – similarly to several other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa – has experienced a shift from the large-scale concessionary model historically used to access and harvest forests, to more
versatile models involving smaller-scale operators. The timber they produce is sold not only locally in producer countries but also across borders and beyond. Yet small-scale operators largely work outside established regulatory frameworks and as such remain invisible to national and international