The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives (MTIC) developed the micro, small and medium- sized enterprises (MSMEs) Policy (2015-2025) that was approved by Cabinet in 2015 as well as its Implementation Strategy 2016/17-2020/21 to address bottlenecks to MSMEs development and guide the private sector as an important vehicle for knowledge exchange, technology and innovation development, research and investment transfer, to significantly contribute to sustainable and efficient value addition production.

Both documents are in accordance with Uganda’s Government Vision 2040 and the National Development Plan II with the theme “Growth, Employment, and Socio economic Transformation for Prosperity”.

Furthermore, Uganda designed the National Development Plan III (NDP III 2020/21 – 2024/25) that offers a strategic focus on private sector development and most importantly, the growth of MSMEs, based on the figures that “the private sector in Uganda is dominated by about 1.1-million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) all together employing approximately 2.5-million people”.

The MSMEs Policy has been running for over five years and brought about several achievements in accelerating Uganda’s entrepreneurship culture. It now faces a number of challenges including those related to the Covid-19 pandemic which has a negative impact on the economy and MSMEs’ performance and growth in particular. Lockdowns, the closure of businesses, loss of markets and limited access to credit contributed to a declined performance of the MSMEs in Uganda. Moreover, the current MSMEs Policy and Strategy do not cater for the issues related to migrants and refugee entrepreneurship. Therefore, MTIC deemed important to review and formulate a MSMEs Strategy in line with the NDP III (2021-2025) and integrating the above-mentioned issues.

Report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development