April 2026
Drivers of willingness to repay Parish Revolving funds (PRF) under Uganda’s Parish Development Model: a Bayesian Latent Class Logistic Regression (LCLR) approach
This study examines the determinants of beneficiaries’ willingness to repay the Parish Revolving Fund (PRF) under Uganda’s Parish Development Model (PDM), using nation ally representative data from the 2024 EPRC PDM Survey. The study applies a Bayesian Latent Class Logistic Regression (LCLR) model to account for observed and unobserved heterogeneity in repayment behaviour. Results show significant variation in repayment willingness by gender, education, region and wealth. Financial literacy, awareness of repayment terms, larger PRF amounts and shorter disbursement periods increase repayment willingness, while long delays and low household wealth reduce it. The Bayesian model i...
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March 2026
Perceptions of doing business decline, on account of pessimistic outlook
Uganda’s Business Climate Index (BCI) declined during the quarter October–December 2025, by 25.5 index points from 125.6 to 100.1, signaling weakening business sentiments largely driven by pessimistic expectations about the near-term economic outlook. Particularly, business expectations for the January–March 2026 quarter remain subdued on account of anticipated weakened capacity utilisation, rising input costs and reduced profitability. The subdued business outlook emerged with the uncertainty that is associated with the General Election season. At the sectoral level, business sentiments across all sectors registered an improvement in the quarter under review. The industr...
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February 2026
Process Assessment of the Parish Development Model (PDM) Programme Implementation in Uganda
The Government of Uganda (GoU) launched the Parish Development Model (PDM) in February 2022 with the objective of transitioning 3.5 million households (33 percent) from subsistence to a monetised economy. The PDM is premised on seven pillars, that is, agriculture value-chain development (Pillar 1); infrastructure and economic services (Pillar 2); financial inclusion (Pillar 3); social Services (Pillar 4); community mobilisation and mind-set change (Pillar 5); Parish-Based Management Information System (PBMIS) (Pillar 6); and governance and administration (Pillar 7). The PDM programme aims for a holistic transformation of rural livelihoods by integrating subsistence households into the money...
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February 2026
Ensuring Continuity: Succession Planning Strategies for Ugandan Family Enterprises
Family businesses are central to Uganda’s economy, contributing over 70 percent of GDP and forming the majority of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises. Despite their importance, most family businesses cannot transition beyond the founding generation. This policy brief examines succession planning practices and implementation challenges among established family businesses in Uganda. The findings show that some established family businesses are adopting promising succession planning practices, including early exposure of the younger generation to the business, hands on learning across operational levels, deliberate transfer of business networks, and gradual formalisation of transitio...
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June 2012
UGANDA’S ELECTRICITY SECTOR REFORMS AND INSTITUTIONAL RESTRUCTURING
Using time series and the Uganda National Household Survey data, this paper seeks to examine the impact of the electricity reforms on the performance of the sector. Specifically, we investigate the effectiveness of the reforms in terms of sector performance taking into consideration various performance indicators such as electricity access, generation per capita, distribution efficiency, price trends, subsidies and customer growth. These indicators were selected on the basis of the rationale of the reforms. Results show that connectivity is increasing, but cannot be statistically linked to the reforms. In addition, we show that the reforms have tended to favour the urban dwellers with conne...
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September 2024
Delivering the Triple Wins in Uganda: Budget, Jobs, and Growth
This study examines the relationship between employment and economic growth in Uganda between 2016 and 2021. It disaggregates the job creation potential of different sectors of the economy considering the difference in sectoral productivity. Further, the study explores the budget investments required by the different sectors to generate jobs. This is critical because, despite sustained high levels of economic growth over time in Uganda, this growth is not translating into job creation as the country is grappling with high levels of unemployment. Employing the Shapley decomposition approach using the World Bank Job Generation and Decomposition (JoGGs) tool, findings indicate that econom...
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September 2024
Creating Decent and Productive Jobs Through Digital Transformation in Uganda
This study explores the role of digital transformation in creating productive employment in Uganda. This is critical given the global shift towards the fourth industrial revolution, whereby digitalisation offers opportunities to address unemployment and underemployment in developing countries. The study utilises a mixed method approach to address these research questions; a desk review to assess the digital transformation policy landscape in Uganda, and a quantitative approach which involves the analysis of secondary data that combines occupational data from the O*NET database and the National Labour Force Survey (2016-17 and 2021). The results reveal that Uganda has experienced a cons...
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September 1996
Nature and Determinants ofDomestic Savings in Uganda
Adequate saving is an essential precondition for sustained economic growth. A higher rate of savings means less consumption now in return for increased wealth and future consumption. The increased Wealth will reflect reduced foreign liabilities; and where concerns about foreign indebtedness are constraining economic growth, increased domestic savings will mean more domestic investment. An open economy like that of Uganda can attract foreign savings to help finance growth, but risk and other considerations limit the extent to which domestic investment can proceed independently of domestic savings. The close correlation between levels of investmentand rates ofdomestic saving across count...
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