MOMBASA, Kenya — The Ugandan government will prioritize funding for foreign missions that deliver measurable economic results, officials said during a high-level review of the nation’s diplomatic strategy.
Ramathan Ggoobi, the permanent secretary for the Ministry of Finance and secretary to the treasury, told diplomats Tuesday that the government is treating the current mid-term review of the Economic and Commercial Diplomacy strategy as an investment decision exercise rather than a simple compliance check.
Related posts
Where performance exists, they will be scaled, Ggoobi said. He added that underperforming efforts would be redesigned and existing constraints fixed to ensure missions serve as economic bases for transformative growth.
The three-day meeting at the Bamburi Beach Hotel focused on aligning the work of Uganda’s embassies in Africa with a national ten-fold growth strategy. Permanent Secretary Bagiire Vincent Waiswa said missions have been tasked with growing exports, attracting investment and gathering market intelligence over the next five years.
To support these goals, a new secretariat and research hub have been established at the ministries of foreign affairs and finance. The hub is designed to provide diplomats with quality-assured data to market Ugandan products more effectively.
Bagiire also announced a new requirement for foreign service officers to gain direct experience at relevant government departments. This initiative aims to ensure diplomats understand the products and processes they are expected to promote in their host countries.
Ggoobi urged missions to focus on the African Continental Free Trade Area, which represents a $3 billion market. He said every diplomatic engagement must now be filtered through a single question: Does this effort create market access for Uganda?
The review identified four key requirements for future funding: clear commercial targets, specific sector priorities, identified investors and measurable work plans.
Finance officials said that if missions successfully align diplomacy with commerce, the nation will see significant wealth over the next 15 years.
