There are high levels of entrepreneurial activity in Uganda, and a growing enterprise support ecosystem. This is made up of a number of established and new Ugandan organisations and institutions, well-established international NGOs, successful endeavours from Kenya that are moving into Africa, and a growing impact investing community. If financing and talent challenges can be addressed, there is no doubt that Uganda has the entrepreneurial spirit, population and natural resources to become an SME powerhouse.

 

Key findings

There is emerging co-ordination of the ecosystem and a strong ecosystem support for agribusiness, which is seen as the driver for business growth, as well as a focus on youth, since Uganda has one of the world’s youngest populations. It is very positive to see the Ugandan Government’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Policy Strategy, released in 2015, which creates a mandate for the government in terms of implementation and coordination, and also provides government funding for enabling environment activities for SME development and growth. The lack of finance for SMEs other than agriculture is particularly challenging in Uganda. Commercial banks need to be supported to find ways to lend to the sector.

Other resources

  • The ANDE hosted Uganda Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Initiative (UEEI) conducted a comprehensive assessment of the Kampala and Gulu entrepreneurial ecosystems in 2018, and is building a strategy to address the most binding constraints.
  • A mapping based on social network analysis was published by Swisscontact and Amarin Financial Group in 2020
  • ANDE's ecosystems mappings library contains other useful resources, indexed by region and country.

About Argidius’ mappings

We regularly commission SME ecosystems mappings in our target geographies. These studies are intended to give contextual overview and shed light on the challenges and opportunities for SME development and poverty alleviation. They include an inventory of service organisations and an analysis of the services landscape including areas of unfulfilled needs (gaps) Argidius use these maps to help identify organisations positioned to address these gaps.