Uganda is one of East Africa’s fastest-growing economies and home to emerging Fintech, Foodtech Software, and Data start-ups. The country has access to global accelerator programs, grants and events to boost entrepreneurship. Uganda’s start-up community is an important and promising driver of economic growth, high value job creation and a driver of national development.
Uganda is ranked 119th among 132 countries in the Global Innovation Index 2022, making it one of the least innovative in the world. Uganda ranks 6th among the 16 low-income group economies and 13th among the 26 economies in Sub-Saharan Africa. The major bottlenecks stifling the emergence of new enterprises from the innovation ecosystem are i) Limited linkages between academia and industry due to fragmentation of the various players and resources in the technology and product development value chain; ii) Inadequate specialized facilities and human capital to support technology development, product development and commercialization in the various innovation clusters; iii) Absence of necessary regulatory policies to support growth of clusters of technology development within the ecosystem; iv) Inadequate private sector participation in the enhancement of the innovation ecosystem; v) Limited capacity for policy implementation in Uganda’s innovation ecosystem; and vi) Inequality in distribution of innovation and research opportunities – most being urban based.
Read more at: https://www.undp.org/uganda/blog/accelerating-growth-ugandas-start-ecosystem