How Dr. Zawedde turned the ICT ministry into a builder of national systems

When Dr Aminah Zawedde became Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance in July 2021, the ministry was largely a policy office. Five years later, as she moves to the Office of the Prime Minister, the ministry says it runs 43 national digital systems, most of them built by Ugandan firms, on a budget nearly five times larger than it was three years ago.

Ministry figures show its programme budget rose from about UGX 104 billion in the 2022/23 financial year to about UGX 490 billion in the current financial year. The money has gone into systems that carry some of government’s largest transactions.

The biggest is the Parish Development Model register, which checks beneficiaries against the national identity database before payments are released. According to Ministry of Finance figures, it has paid 3,571,108 people and channelled UGX 4.317 trillion into the Parish Revolving Fund. A schools register that replaced software installed in 1999 now holds records of more than 11 million learners and 145,000 staff and is used by all 178 local governments. Thirty-eight government entities have moved their files onto a records management system maintained by government staff.

The ministry says all three were built by Ugandan companies under ministry contracts, and that government owns the source code. This model avoids recurring licence fees to foreign vendors and keeps maintenance skills in the country.

That approach was formalised in June, when the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority accredited the ministry’s innovator selection process. Government entities can now buy software from a registered pool of Ugandan innovators. Before the change, small local firms often struggled to meet procurement requirements designed for large suppliers.

The ministry has also tried to map what government already owns. In May, Dr Zawedde launched a Government Digital Registry, which the ministry says recorded for the first time about 743 systems and 489 business processes across 154 government entities. The registry gives planners a basis for spotting duplicated systems before new ones are funded.

Connectivity costs have fallen over the same period. According to the ministry, government paid USD 70 per megabit a month for internet in 2021, compared with USD 35 now. The national fibre backbone spans 5,266 kilometres and reaches 1,682 government sites. Starlink was licensed to operate in Uganda in May, adding a satellite option for areas the backbone does not reach.

For businesses, the most visible change has been company registration. Figures cited by the ministry show that registering a business, which previously took 10 to 15 days, now takes about three hours through an online register launched in December 2022. Some 279,567 businesses have registered through it, and the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) collected UGX 71.81 billion in non-tax revenue through the system in a single financial year. URSB recorded 3,295 intellectual property filings and grants in 2024/25, with copyright registrations up 43 per cent year on year, after intellectual property guidelines were issued in 2025.

The ministry has also sought to build a local supply of tech firms. The National ICT Innovation Hub at Nakawa reopened in January 2024 after being rebuilt with support from the United Nations Development Programme, and regional hubs opened at Kabale, Soroti, Muni University and Busitema University. The ministry says the Nakawa hub has supported 133 start-ups, taken 102 products to market and that firms based there created 726 verified jobs.

Speaking at Busitema in September, Dr Zawedde said the hubs “equip young people with the skills and support needed to innovate, create jobs, and contribute meaningfully to the digital economy.”

Outsourcing has been treated as an export industry. A national outsourcing policy launched in February 2025 targets 150,000 jobs by 2030. Uganda ranked 24th of 193 countries on this year’s Global Outsourcing Talent Index, second in East Africa after Kenya. Under a project with Japan, Ugandan firms including Maarifasasa and Sumic IT Solutions hold paid contracts with Japanese clients.

Inside government, the ministry addressed a long-standing staffing gap. Schemes of service issued in 2023 placed IT and communications officers under the Ministry of ICT as their parent ministry, giving them a grading structure and career path they previously lacked. The Uganda Institute of ICT trained 5,587 government officers, 843 of whom completed a national artificial intelligence programme in the last financial year.

The policy framework has also expanded. The Digital Transformation Roadmap, launched in August 2023, ties the digital transformation programme to the Fourth National Development Plan. Cabinet approved the National Communication Policy in March 2026 and the National Data Strategy on 20 October.

At the launch of the data strategy, Dr Zawedde said: “Artificial intelligence is only as intelligent and ethical as the data that feeds it.”

Dr Zawedde holds a PhD in software engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology and taught for 15 years at Makerere University’s School of Computing and Informatics Technology. She previously chaired the Digital Transformation Committee of the board of the National Information Technology Authority – Uganda.

As Permanent Secretary, she was the ministry’s accounting officer and head of administration. Policy is set by ministers and Cabinet, and much of the delivery cited by the ministry was carried out by agencies under its supervision or by other ministries running systems it procured.

Her new role at the Office of the Prime Minister centres on coordination across government ministries.