The Uganda Development Bank (UDB) is convening the inaugural Uganda Development Finance Summit. UDB is the country’s national Development Finance Institution (DFI).
The highly anticipated Summit, scheduled for 1-2 September 2025 at the Speke Resort Convention Centre, Kampala, Uganda, will proceed under the theme, “Transforming Africa through National Development Finance Architecture.”
This flagship event will bring together over 400 high-level participants drawn from government, national financial institutions, the private sector, academia and global finance practitioners to address the need to explore new financing options and approaches to unlock Africa’s economic potential. Through inclusive dialogue and strategic collaboration, the event aims to accelerate sustainable growth, address urgent development priorities, and chart a bold and pragmatic, forward-looking path for African economies.
This has become imperative, the conveners say, in the face of shrinking traditional funding sources such as aid and concessional financing, with Africa increasingly turning to global debt markets to meet its development needs.
However, accessing these international financial markets presents its own set of challenges, such as limited access and higher interest rates compared to other sovereign borrowers.
This situation has exacerbated a financing gap that makes it challenging to provide capital to both the public and private sectors, thus constraining economic growth and transformation across the continent.
Dr. Patricia Ojangole, the Managing Director of UDB, stated, “Hosting the Development Finance Summit underscores UDB’s commitment to catalysing the development finance agenda on the African continent. The Summit will serve as a platform for dialogue, knowledge sharing, and partnership building, focusing on fostering inclusive growth, financing sustainable projects, and addressing the challenges faced by national development banks in Africa.”
Participants at the summit will gain invaluable insights, discover innovative solutions, and forge new partnerships as the summit focuses on and explores themes ranging from the Role of National Development Banks in Catalysing Sustainable Socio-Economic Development to Financing Industrial Policy in Africa, Creating Agri-Value Chains, and making SMEs work for Africa.
It will also consider the Constraints and Opportunities facing Green Financing and how to Catalyse Investment with Blended Financing, amongst others.
Interested participants can express their interest in participating by visiting the registration page at https://ugandadevsummit.com/, which will enable them to take part and contribute to the conversations.
Meanwhile, Uganda Development Bank Limited (UDB) is the country’s national Development Finance Institution (DFI) with a mandate to accelerate socio-economic development through sustainable financial and non-financial interventions, both debt and equity. UDB also offers non-financial services geared at fostering enterprise investment readiness.
Consistent with this mandate, the Bank supports projects within the private sector that demonstrate the 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 align with Uganda’s development priorities.
Uganda Development Bank (UDB) aligns its sector priorities with National Development Plan IV (NDP IV), focusing on Primary Agriculture, Industry (to include agro-industrialization, manufacturing, knowledge-based industries, and extractives), and Services (health, tourism, and hospitality, education, science, technology, and innovation) and Infrastructure. Agriculture, agro-industry, and manufacturing constitute about 75% of the Bank’s portfolio, aligning with the Government focus under NDP IV and Vision 2040.
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