Uganda presses diaspora to turn remittances into investment capital

Uganda is pushing its diaspora to redirect the money they send home from family upkeep into productive investment, with a senior finance official setting a target of raising such inflows to about 5 percent of gross domestic product — roughly $25 billion a year — by 2040, as part of a long-term drive to build a $500 billion economy.

The appeal dominated Equity Bank’s Diaspora Xchange webinar on Saturday, convened under the theme of turning remittances into investment capital, which drew Ugandan professionals abroad alongside government and banking officials. Remittances currently amount to around 2.8 percent of GDP, and the government wants that share to nearly double as the economy expands.

Joseph Enyimu, Commissioner for Economic Development Policy and Research at the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, framed the pitch around an economy he said had been transformed over three decades and now ranked among Africa’s more attractive investment destinations. He put Uganda’s GDP at roughly $75 billion this year, with output per person expected to pass $1,500, and said the country was on course to return to double-digit growth for the first time in nearly two decades — a projection consistent with official forecasts tied to the start of commercial oil production. Enyimu said Uganda offered average returns on investment of about 14 percent, one of the continent’s highest, and pointed to a comparatively stable currency as protection for the value of investors’ capital.

He also told participants that Uganda had met United Nations criteria for graduating from the least developed countries category for the first time in 2024, a marker of structural change, and that a generation of gains had lifted life expectancy to about 70 years.

Much of Enyimu’s case rested on diversification. Coffee, which once generated close to 70 percent of export earnings, now accounts for less than a fifth, he said, as the government channels investment into edible oils, biofuels, industrial starch, grain and wood processing, confectionery and beverages. In tourism, he said Uganda was moving beyond wildlife into health, culinary and education travel and the conference market, while courting international hotel brands. He pointed to a mining law overhaul and a new national mining company underpinning exports of processed gold and refined metals, and to ambitions in battery minerals such as lithium and graphite to feed electric mobility. On technology, Enyimu said the country was assembling mobile phones for African markets and producing transformers and other electrical equipment once imported.

He urged the diaspora to think past Uganda’s borders, arguing that investments made locally open onto a regional market worth close to $1 trillion through the East African Community and COMESA, positioning the country as a production and export base.

Domestic capital is being mobilised in parallel, Enyimu said, with the savings-to-GDP ratio rising from near zero three decades ago to more than 20 percent, and a government target of 40 percent to fund long-term investment at home. He cited pension funds, collective investment schemes and the Parish Development Model — a revolving fund into which the government has put more than $1 billion — as evidence of that shift.

Addressing the reservations that keep many overseas Ugandans out of the property market, Enyimu listed reforms he said were meant to curb fraud and improve transparency: digital land searches, corporate land-management portals and centralised valuation, alongside a proposed Real Estate Bill and a planned mortgage refinance company to widen access to housing finance. He said about $1.5 billion was going into urban infrastructure across Kampala and secondary cities, and urged Ugandans abroad to organise into investment groups and registered companies to qualify for incentives and licences. “We think that as players from the diaspora, you need to shift from financing consumption towards investing in firms,” he said. “Continue supporting family and friends, but start thinking more about commercial investments.”

That message was echoed by Tim Mugerwa, Vice President and Director of the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Association UK, which he described as Europe’s largest network of Ugandan health professionals — a membership he said held both the capital and the expertise to invest at scale. Ugandans abroad had long been defined by the sums they remit for relatives, Mugerwa said, but were increasingly drawn to treasury bills, government bonds, unit trusts, insurance and wealth-management products as part of longer-term planning.

Mugerwa credited Equity Bank with helping members move away from informal arrangements — often relatives managing money back home, sometimes at a loss — toward formal channels for transfers, mortgages and advisory services. Beyond finance, he pointed to a joint project with the bank to refurbish a mental health rehabilitation unit for the Uganda Police, addressing trauma, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse among security personnel, and said the association planned to move into real estate development.