Kampala, Uganda — Key stakeholders gathered in Kampala on the Mastercard Foundation’s Younger Africa Works Dialogue on February 19, 2025, to talk referring to the challenges young entrepreneurs in Uganda face in starting up and scaling original ventures. The tournament culminated within the start of recommendations for empowering the sphere and a name to bolt for systemic reforms to free up the elephantine potential of childhood entrepreneurship.
The dialogue, attended by over 350 participants on the Serena Lodge, featured a keynote address by Godfrey Byamukama, Assistant Commissioner, who represented Ramathan Ggoobi, the Everlasting Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury, Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Financial Pattern. He emphasised the necessity to bridge the hole between coverage and be conscious, acknowledging that childhood’s voices are an crucial in shaping efficient interventions. “The honest measure of Uganda’s progress lies in how we empower our childhood to lead its transformation. By breaking obstacles to entrepreneurship and equipping them with the instruments to prevail, we’re not factual constructing agencies—we are constructing a nation.” He additionally highlighted Uganda’s fearless ten-fold economic increase strategy, which targets to enlarge the economy from $50 billion to $500 billion over 15 years, with childhood entrepreneurship on the centre. The government is capitalizing wealth funds payment $1.31 billion (UGX 4.8 trillion), focusing on childhood, women, agriculture, and industrial transformation.
Uganda’s childhood are widely identified for his or her entrepreneurial spirit, playing a pivotal role in driving innovation and economic increase. Essentially essentially based on the Reveal of Entrepreneurship in Uganda 2024 File, micro, limited, and medium enterprises yarn for over 90 p.c of non-public sector agencies and employ millions of Ugandans, making these enterprises a cornerstone of the economy. Alternatively, systemic obstacles hinder young entrepreneurs, including limited derive entry to to finance, low enterprise registration rates, limited market derive entry to, and a power digital divide. Addressing these constraints via centered skilling, financial inclusion, and enabling policies is crucial to unlocking the elephantine potential of Uganda’s young entrepreneurs.
Adongo Immaculate, a participant of the Regional Universities Dialogue board for Ability Building in Agriculture at Gulu University and Founding father of Contemporary Picks Endeavor, reflected on the challenges childhood face in getting access to enterprise strengthen and talents style.
Kids execute not lack potential; they lack derive entry to to the correct skills and alternatives. The ideal mistake we proceed to invent as a society is that we bid childhood for an international that not exists.”
The young entrepreneur underscored the importance of embedding entrepreneurship practising into education systems and guaranteeing that childhood are ready to quiz employment and derive their have alternatives.
The discussions reinforced the urgent need for improved derive entry to to finance, productive resources, and stronger survey-to-survey networks. Younger entrepreneurs requested more files about alternatives internal the broader entrepreneurship ecosystem. Additionally, they known as for bolstered inclusive focusing on for childhood with disabilities and refugees, guaranteeing that interventions are tailored to their particular wants. Building partnerships that offer a huge selection of companies and products and capabilities, including mentorship, market derive entry to, and skill-constructing initiatives, used to be highlighted as a chief step in advancing childhood entrepreneurship.
Key Solutions from the Younger Africa Works Dialogue
- Lengthen derive entry to to finance by rising childhood-pleasant financial merchandise and alternative financing objects.
- Enhance survey-to-survey enterprise networks and digital platforms to toughen market derive entry to and data sharing.
- Assemble a more enabling coverage and regulatory atmosphere that supports childhood-led agencies and startups.
- Integrate entrepreneurship practising into education in any respect ranges to equip childhood with purposeful enterprise skills.
- Toughen inclusion by tailoring financial companies and products, practising, and market derive entry to for women, refugees, and americans with disabilities.
Entry to finance remains a chief barrier for young entrepreneurs, essentially due to high passion rates, sluggish loan disbursement, and stringent collateral necessities. The dialogue explored alternative financing objects, including grants, digital microfinance, and asset-backed lending, to make sure that childhood, specifically women and marginalized groups, have bigger derive entry to to credit.
For many young entrepreneurs, networks and collaboration play a crucial role in sustaining agencies. Florence Naziwa, an agribusiness exporter and participant within the Foundation’s partnership with Ripple Develop, shared her skedaddle of overcoming challenges within the sphere, noting that whereas exporting can appear complex, it provides a viable economic alternative for childhood. “Of us can even misfortune to be part of the export enterprise because it appears to be like sophisticated. But I’d desire to encourage more americans to be part of. In existence, a comma just will not be a elephantine end, so we must retain transferring forward.” She emphasised the importance of linking young entrepreneurs to genuine offer chains and structured enterprise strengthen systems to make sure prolonged-time duration success.
In his remarks, Adrian Bukenya, Nation Director for Uganda on the Mastercard Foundation, reaffirmed the Foundation’s commitment to unlocking alternatives for young Ugandans via the Younger Africa Works strategy. The initiative targets to enable 4.3 million childhood—3 million of whom are young women—to derive entry to dignified and enticing work by 2030. He wired that eradicating systemic obstacles to childhood employment and entrepreneurship requires deep collaboration between the govt., non-public sector, and childhood-led organizations.
“Uganda’s finest asset is its childhood. Once they thrive, the nation prospers. The duty forward of us is to make sure that every young Ugandan—whether within the city or the village, whether starting up a enterprise or getting into the group—has the chance to contribute to and succor from the nation’s economic increase. Here’s not factual a imaginative and prescient but a accountability we all piece” – Adrian BukenyaCountry Director, Uganda.
Bukenya emphasised that achieving impact at scale demands ecosystem-extensive collaboration and systemic transformation. He known as for stronger public-non-public partnerships to make sure that skilling capabilities are linked to financing and market derive entry to, providing young entrepreneurs with stop-to-stop strengthen—from practising to enterprise increase.
The tournament underscored the necessity for stronger collaboration among govt, non-public sector, and grace organizations to enlarge derive entry to to resources, mentorship, skilling, and financing for young entrepreneurs. Participants emphasised scaling efficient objects and deepening partnerships to drive Uganda’s economic transformation without leaving any young entrepreneur behind.
About the Mastercard Foundation
The Mastercard Foundation is a registered Canadian charity and one of the critical ideal foundations within the enviornment. It works with visionary organizations to approach education and financial inclusion to enable childhood in Africa and Indigenous childhood in Canada to derive entry to dignified and enticing work. Established in 2006 via the generosity of Mastercard when it grew to change into a public firm, the Foundation is an just group separate from the firm, with workplaces in Toronto, Kigali, Accra, Nairobi, Kampala, Lagos, Dakar, and Addis Ababa. Its policies, operations, and program selections are constructive by the Foundation’s Board of Administrators and leadership.
For more files, please contact:
Rachel Nandelenga, Head, Nation Program Communications
[email protected]
