National Planning Authority was established by the NPA Act (15 of 2002) in accordance with Article 125 of the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda. The Authority was established on backdrop of the need for:

Building the national capacity for visionary and long term planning. The Authority would establish a framework that enable the short and medium term national priorities to be derived from and guided by agreed strategic objectives, long term development goals and perspective vision aspirations.

Having in place an institution that will be responsible for ensuring a sustainable and balanced national development by integrating economic, social and political dimensions of development with spatial and environment aspects.

Creation of policy and institutional arrangements that will facilitate systematic integration of district plans into national development plans i.e. integrating decentralized and national development planning processes.

Establishment of a central forum for participatory development planning through sharing of ideas by different stakeholders and agreeing on courses of action. This would entail putting in place a consistent, efficient, co-ordinated and integrated framework and system of managing national planning for development and service delivery.