By Bob Twinomugisha Uganda Development Bank (UDB) was established in 1972 by a presidential decree purposely to finance technically feasible, economically viable and socially desirable projects. Between 1973 and 1985, UDB financed 691 projects worth US$170 million with major investments in the industry, livestock, fish processing, tea, coffee, cotton, sugar, and cement sectors among others. The civil unrest that the country experienced between 1982 and 1994, adversely affected the Bank’s performance creating a slowdown in project implementation and project supervision resulting in a distressed investment portfolio. By 1996, the Bank suffered huge accumulated losses and servicing external credit was a…
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Uganda Development Bank Ltd (UDB), the country’s national Development Finance Institution, has released its Quarter Three (Q3) of 2022 results highlighting solid growth as the Bank continues to facilitate economic recovery through tailored interventions that suit the country’s development needs. Through Q3, which covered the months of July, August, and September, UDB’s investment portfolio (gross loans) improved by 15% to close at UGX1.18trillion. Compared to the previous year, the annual growth registered was in the highs of 57 per cent. During the quarter, the Bank approved funding amounting UGX333 billion and disbursed UGX237 billion. “The funding was allocated to 72…
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Uganda Development Bank Ltd (UDB) has launched its 2nd cohort of the Graduate Apprenticeship Program (GAP) that will provide hands-on skills development and job opportunities to nascent professionals in Uganda in a bid to create a pool for the Bank’s future talent needs. The GAP is one of the Bank’s responses to developing its human capital and aims at creating sustainable, decent, and meaningful jobs for budding professionals, and this is in alignment with the government’s priority interventions stipulated in Vision 2040 and NDPIII. “At UDB, we recognize that job creation is central to the national socio-economic development process and…
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By Bob Twinomugisha Access to capital is critical for small business success and crucial to our economic recovery. Without access to capital, many small companies are not able to maintain operations, let alone expand and create new jobs said Samuel Bruce Graves, an American politician. Over the past four years, Uganda has battled several economic shocks including the locust invasion, drought, Covid-19 pandemic, and the current geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine. The livelihoods of many Ugandans have been negatively affected due to the rise in the cost of living, declining household incomes, and in some cases the loss of…
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Uganda Development Bank (UDB), the country’s Development Finance Institution, has launched the Enterprise Development Program aimed at preparing entrepreneurs for financing through enhanced business practices. The Enterprise Development Program will be a series of trainings under the Bank’s Business Accelerator for Successful Entrepreneurship Program, conducted with basis to build business survival and resilience, and to walk the entrepreneurship journey in supporting business owners to appreciate why they should operate their businesses professionally so as guarantee their long-term profitability and sustainability. “Access to finance remains a major challenge for businesses especially Small and Medium Enterprises in Uganda because many are not…
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Uganda Development Bank, the country’s National Development Finance Institution, has today released its 2021 Direct Impact Report highlighting the fundamental role that the Bank continues to play toward Uganda’s sustainable socio-economic transformation and growth. This Direct Impact Report reflects UDB’s work and coverage through job creation, output value, forex, and tax generated by enterprises supported by the Bank. “In the intervening period, the Bank’s investment created and maintained a total of 41,338 jobs, and a total output value of UGX 2.445 trillion was realized. This output value contributed UGX84 billion in form of tax revenue to the government, and forex…
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In the Q&A below, UDB Managing Director Patricia Ojangole explains in detail what the Year-to-Date figures mean. QN: The economy is currently undergoing a slowdown partly due to the ripple effects of Covid-19 and the on-going Ukraine-Russia war. This has hurt growth in many sectors of the economy and increased prices. What does UDB mean when it says the economy is on a path to recovery? The evidence of recovery is in the response of strategic sectors such as primary agriculture, Agro processing and manufacturing. In the Year-to-Date figures for example we see that the greater percentage of projects funded…
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By Ronald Wandera The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed more than 6 million lives worldwide over the past 2 years. In Uganda, there were about 163,416 confirmed cases and 3,588 deaths as of 9th of March 2022, according to Ministry of Health latest report. To curb the spread of the virus, the government of Uganda imposed stringent mitigation and containment measures including travel restriction and total lockdowns which negatively affected different sectors of the economy. The biggest impact was on the services sector, with tourism as one of the hardest hit sub-sectors. The tourism sector was hard hit by Covid-19 because…
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Uganda Development Bank Ltd (UDBL), the country’s national Development Finance Institution, in partnership with the European Union, has announced a special call for eligible businesses in the tourism sector to apply for and receive up to UGX1 billion in grants and soft loan with flexible terms aligned to the current needs of the sector. The Facility is intended to give operators access to working capital to fast track recovery post the Covid-19 devastating effects and support initiatives to become more environment friendly. “At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Uganda like other countries, sanctioned travel restrictions within and out of…
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By Pius Wamala War can be avoided. Technology is about human innovation and ingenuity. However, in speaking about the availability of wheat for bread today, where the same has been disrupted by the conflict in Ukraine or that wheat cultivation on the scale that previously made Ukraine the breadbasket of the world – one may easily forget that neither war nor technology is as important to feeding the world as the climate. Uganda is not Ukraine but within the East African region is regarded as the food basket – mostly on account of its agreeable weather and arable soils. Unfortunately,…
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