Africa is moving rapidly into the artificial intelligence era. Governments are developing AI strategies, companies are experimenting with generative AI and Agentic AI, universities are expanding AI training, and investors are beginning to look at AI as the next major…
For more than a century, Pan-Africanism gave Africa a powerful political idea: that the continent was stronger when Africans stood together. From the anti-colonial struggle to the creation of the Organisation of African Unity and later the African Union, the…
Aliko Dangote is betting that East Africa can become a major refining market. His proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Lamu, Kenya, could become one of the region’s biggest industrial investments. But before the plant can turn crude into fuel, it must…
Pearl Bank says “When You Grow, Uganda Prospers.” The more interesting question is whether the economics behind that promise can be seen and measured. Consider a maize farmer in Rakai. He has land, a crop to grow and potentially a…
Africa has sunshine, wind, forests, minerals, agricultural land and one of the world’s youngest populations. It also has an expanding pipeline of opportunities in renewable energy, climate smart agriculture, clean cooking, electric mobility and carbon markets. What it does not…
Kenya’s milk shortage has exposed a contradiction at the heart of East Africa’s food economy: one of the region’s largest dairy producers is struggling to meet consumer demand while its neighbour, Uganda, continues to produce enough milk to maintain a…
Kenya’s attempt to protect small businesses is exposing a bigger question for East Africa: can national economic interests coexist with the promise of a single regional market? Kenya’s crackdown on foreign nationals operating small businesses has moved from a political…
Uganda is exporting coffee at record levels. But with more than 95% of production still leaving the country as green beans, the next agribusiness opportunity may lie not in growing more coffee, but in capturing more value from what Uganda…
Starlink has entered Uganda’s internet market. But its biggest impact may not be in Kampala, where fibre and mobile broadband already compete aggressively, but in the places where building conventional infrastructure is hardest. For years, the debate around Starlink in…
A decade after losing the contest to lead Uganda’s petroleum regulator, Fred Kabanda is again at the centre of the succession debate as PAU prepares for a new Executive Director. Ten years ago, Fred Kabanda was among the leading contenders…
When Uber arrived in Kampala in June 2016, the idea of ordering a car or boda through a phone was still unfamiliar to many Ugandans. Ten years later, ride-hailing is no longer an experiment. It is part of how many…
Uganda’s oil has spent nearly two decades underground, in boardrooms, financing negotiations and political speeches. On Wednesday, it finally got a name. President Yoweri Museveni unveiled Pearl Sweet, the commercial identity under which crude from Uganda’s Lake Albert fields will…
Uganda needs an estimated US$28.1 billion for climate action by 2030, with government expecting 86 percent of the financing to come from private and international sources. But there is a wide gap between that ambition and the money currently reaching…
Finance Trust is preparing for life after Annet Nakawunde Mulindwa. The bank announced on September 1 that its long-serving Managing Director will leave in November 2026 to take up a new international leadership opportunity, ending nearly 15 years at the…
After decades of failed revival attempts, Uganda has put Kilembe Mines under a new ownership and production-sharing model. The government has a direct 15% stake and copper production is targeted for 2029. But the real test is no longer whether…
Nearly UGX 200 billion mobilised from more than 130,000 savers is an impressive start for NSSF’s Smartlife Flexi. But another number may matter even more: 97% of those savers are using mobile money. As NSSF renews its partnership with Airtel…
The disruption at Kenya’s main aviation gateway is a reminder of how closely Uganda remains tied to Nairobi. But it also highlights an opportunity: build Entebbe into a stronger, more reliable gateway so that Uganda has more options when regional…
For years, Kenya’s banking story was largely about the rise of KCB, Equity and Co-operative Bank. These institutions built powerful domestic franchises and then used Kenya as a launchpad into neighbouring markets. Now, some of Africa’s biggest banking groups are…
Pearl Bank Uganda has a good problem on its hands. Wendi, the digital wallet launched by the then PostBank Uganda, is growing at a pace that makes it increasingly difficult to regard it as simply another payments product. Balances held…
When thousands of runners descended on Kasese for the fifth Tusker Lite Rwenzori Marathon, they came to run. But the activity surrounding them told a much bigger story. Hotels received guests, restaurants served visitors, transport operators moved people around the…
For Uganda’s digital creators, data is not simply something they use to browse social media. It is part of the cost of producing their work. A TikTok creator needs data to upload videos and interact with an audience. A YouTuber…
Kenya Airways enters the next stage of its turnaround with an interesting contradiction. Passenger demand remains relatively strong and revenues are growing, but the airline is still struggling to translate that activity into profitability. In the first half of 2026,…
The Uganda Shilling has been under pressure, but Bank of Uganda (BOU) Governor Michael Atingi-Ego does not believe that automatically gives the central bank reason to intervene. The Shilling weakened by about 3.2 percent against the US dollar year on…
Uganda has spent years asking how farmers can produce more. The more important question now is whether they can capture more of the value created by what they produce. A coffee farmer may sell beans that are eventually processed, packaged…
For a Ugandan exporter selling to Kenya, a Kenyan bank financing a business in Uganda or a Tanzanian manufacturer buying regional inputs, doing business across East Africa currently means dealing with different currencies, exchange-rate movements and cross-border payment systems. A…
Uganda’s farmers have a collateral problem. It is not necessarily that they lack productive assets. Many smallholders own land, grow crops, keep livestock or manage trees, but much of that productive wealth remains difficult for conventional lenders to recognise as…
Uganda’s US$500 billion economic ambition comes with a financial requirement that is almost as striking as the target itself, private-sector credit will have to rise from roughly Shs30 trillion today to more than Shs490 trillion by 2040. That means the…
For years, Uganda’s informal economy has operated largely outside the traditional banking system. Small traders, farmers, transport operators, artisans and entrepreneurs generate income every day, but many remain outside the kind of formal financial systems that banks have traditionally designed…
For decades, East Africa’s fuel economy has been built around a simple reality, the region’s biggest markets are not necessarily located where fuel enters the continent. Kenya has been able to turn that geography into an advantage. Fuel arriving through…
Salem Cheman‘s move from Uganda Breweries Limited to dfcu Bank is an interesting one, not least because of the experience he brings into his new role. Cheman has joined dfcu as Innovation, Go-to-Market and Commercialization Senior Manager, ending an eight-year…
Uganda’s negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are about more than whether the country needs another financial programme. They offer a window into a broader shift across East Africa, governments still have ambitious development plans, but financing those ambitions…
Coca-Cola Beverages Uganda has put UGX 215 million behind this year’s Tusker Lite Rwenzori Marathon. Behind the cheque is a bigger business story: an event that started with 800 runners is becoming one of Uganda’s most valuable sports-tourism properties. A…
Stephen Tio Kauma‘s career is difficult to place neatly into one industry. And perhaps that is precisely the point. From professional services and manufacturing to continental finance, education and contemporary African art, the Ugandan executive has spent more than two…
Uganda’s ambition to transform its economy tenfold will require more than public spending and government programmes. It will require private capital to flow into businesses capable of driving productivity, jobs, exports and value addition. The latest results from Stanbic Uganda…
Uganda is about to find out whether having more dollars is the same thing as having a stronger currency. As the country moves closer to commercial oil production, billions of dollars could begin flowing through an economy that already depends…
Uganda wants more of the world to come to her and more of what it produces to reach the world. That ambition is increasingly visible in its plans to grow tourism, expand exports and use major international events such as…
Uganda is building up its financial reserves, but the strategy is exposing a bigger question about the country’s economic resilience, can Uganda generate enough foreign currency to make those reserves sustainable? The Bank of Uganda has begun buying locally produced…
Uganda’s next tax revolution may already be happening in the pockets of millions of citizens. Every time someone sends mobile money, buys airtime, pays for data, makes a digital payment or receives money through a mobile wallet, they leave behind…
For years, agricultural waste has been treated as the unwanted side of farming: coffee husks left around processing plants, maize cobs discarded after harvest, animal manure accumulating on farms and crop residues burned or left to decompose. But across Africa,…
Uganda’s trade with China is booming, but almost entirely in one direction. In 2025, Uganda imported $3.3 billion worth of goods from China while exporting just $118 million. That means for every dollar Uganda sold to China, it bought roughly…
The next phase of artificial intelligence (AI) will not be defined by chatbots answering questions. It will be defined by systems that can do the work. AI agents can plan tasks, use digital tools, analyse information, interact with other systems…
For years, mobile money in Africa was understood as a convenient alternative to cash: a way to send money home, pay a bill, receive money or withdraw funds without visiting a bank. That description is becoming too narrow. Airtel Money…
Tanzania’s agricultural development bank has just published numbers that are hard to ignore. The Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) has disbursed Sh1.55 trillion to 862 projects, reaching more than 2.6 million people, and Sh1.32 trillion of that, 84 percent of…
Uganda’s oil story is entering a new phase. For years, the central question was when Uganda would produce its first barrel. But following President Yoweri Museveni’s latest engagement with Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, a bigger question is emerging, what…
Uganda is entering the artificial intelligence (AI) race, but the nature of that race is changing. For the past few years, the focus has largely been on AI adoption, how businesses, universities, governments and professionals can use tools such as…
For generations, Uganda’s farmers have created value from the land through food production, livestock and natural resource management. But a new opportunity is emerging that could redefine what it means to be an agricultural entrepreneur: the ability to generate income…
Across Africa, a new economic conversation is taking shape. The question is no longer whether the continent should trade more, but whether it can build the industrial capacity required to produce, compete and capture greater value from its own resources.…
The global competition for investment is changing. Capital is available, but it is becoming more selective about where it goes, what it builds and the returns it can generate. For developing economies, this means the competition is no longer simply…
Ugandan women are increasingly taking centre stage in entrepreneurship, building businesses from scratch, creating jobs and contributing to household incomes. But as more women enter business, a bigger question is emerging: can they turn entrepreneurship into lasting wealth when cultural…
For years, Africa’s carbon potential has largely been viewed through the lens of what the continent could offer the world, forests that absorb carbon, renewable energy projects that reduce emissions and natural ecosystems capable of generating carbon credits for companies…
Climate change is forcing farmers across Uganda to make increasingly difficult decisions. The rains that once followed familiar patterns have become less predictable, seasons are shifting and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. For millions of farmers who depend…