Ankole region business community to reap big deals from the Greater Ankole Investment Symposium

The Greater Ankole Investment Symposium has officially opened in Mbarara City under the theme - “The contribution of Financial Innovation to the resilience of the economy for sustained growth”.

Organised by Uganda Development Bank Limited (UDBL) in partnership with Operation Wealth Creation (OWC), the two-day event taking place at Kakyeka Stadium will identify business opportunities in the region, host business to business (B2B) engagements and convene leading local and national leaders to explore practical solutions to enable recovery and growth.

According to the main organisers Uganda Development Bank, the symposium shall contribute to generating viable actions and place Greater Ankole on a sustainable path to a vibrant economy that is an essential part of the regional and national economy.

“Stakeholder engagement and mobilization remain crucial in the advancement of government initiatives to realize the much-needed benefit for the people of Uganda. As UDB we are very deliberate about growing stakeholder value and financing key growth sectors of the economy while ensuring efficiency in our operations. This is one of the reasons why we have committed ourselves fully to this symposium,” Ms Patricia Ojangole, the Managing Director UDB said and reiterated the same during her keynote address.

The participants in the symposium have been drawn from political, business, academia, and civil society leadership from the 13 districts making up Ankole Sub region. 

“We value our partnership with UDB, local government, political and civic leaders as it helps deliver practical and real solutions through a consultative and deliberate process that also implements President Yoweri Museveni’s agenda and government policies to revive the economy,” Chief Coordinator of OWC Gen. Salim Saleh said.

The symposium will among other activities, host a panel discussion moderated by Mr Robert Kabushenga addressing different sub themes to be presented by high profile distinguished panellists to include; Ms Geraldine Ssali, the Permanent Secretary - Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Dr Edward Kazire – the Managing Director Kazire Health Products Limited and Prof. Pamela Mbabazi – the Executive Chair National Planning Authority.

The Greater Ankole symposium is the first of the four planned investment symposiums this year in four sub-regions through which the government aims to bring together investors from different regions to showcase, discuss and explore the investment environment in Uganda, emerging market opportunities and to address challenges that investors face. The next symposium will be hosted in Busoga region.

The Uganda Investment Symposium concept was launched in 2019 with the inaugural symposium held in West Nile region and a subsequent one held in Rwenzori sub region. Organisation of the symposiums was interrupted with the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The symposium, part of an on-going series in conjunction with Operation wealth creation and other partners, is intended to bring together a cohort of key actors in the economy and enhance collaboration, coordinated thinking while promoting business opportunities and investment at the local and regional level.

To support the special categories of enterprise, UDB recently launched a Special Program to give quick access to financing to SMEs focussing on youth and women led enterprises with reduced documentation and more tailored security requirements.

The event will be officially closed by His Excellence The President of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.

Uganda Development Bank Limited (UDB) is the country’s national Development Finance Institution (DFI) with a mandate to accelerate socio-economic development in Uganda through sustainable financial interventions. Consistent with this mandate, the Bank supports projects within the private sector that demonstrate potential to deliver high socio-economic value, in terms of job creation, improved production output, tax contribution and foreign exchange generation, among other outcomes. These projects fall within the key priority sectors of our economy, and in line with Uganda’s development priorities, the Bank’s financing interventions are mainly in Primary Agriculture, Agro-processing, and manufacturing which account for about 80%of its investment portfolio. The Bank however undertakes specific interventions in other sectors including Tourism, Human Capital Development and Infrastructure including ICT.

Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) was launched by H.E the President in July 2013 as an intervention to efficiently facilitate national socio-economic transformation, with a focus on raising household incomes and wealth creation by transforming subsistence farmers into commercial farmers to end poverty.

This was after successful implementation with tangle outcomes of the pilot program launched to support Civilian Veterans in the “Luwero-Rwenzori Triangle”.

OWC Specific Objectives include :to mobilize the masses to engage in commercial agricultural activities to boost household incomes; to distribute production inputs equitably and timely to boost production and productivity at household level; to facilitate rural technological upgrading to allow smallholder farmers to transform themselves into small-scale industrialists; to stimulate local and community enterprise development across the country; and to facilitate infrastructure development particularly in rural areas as well as to empower the 68% of the population outside the money economy.