Uganda is looking to its capital markets to play a larger role in financing infrastructure, industrialisation and private-sector expansion as the government seeks to reduce reliance on conventional bank lending and mobilise more long-term domestic and foreign capital.
The push emerged from a meeting between Finance Minister Henry Musasizi and Capital Markets Authority (CMA) officials, where government reviewed the regulator’s performance, priorities and challenges alongside its broader role in the economy.
The message from the government is increasingly clear: Uganda needs a deeper and more diversified financial system if it is to deliver the scale of investment envisaged under the National Development Plan IV and the Ten-Fold Growth Strategy.
For the capital market, that means moving beyond regulation and creating an ecosystem capable of attracting companies, investors and new financial instruments.
Musasizi urged the CMA to accelerate innovation, strengthen market research and develop new products while expanding participation. The government also wants more companies to raise capital through the market, potentially giving businesses an alternative to commercial-bank loans for financing expansion.
That shift matters because long-term projects such as roads, energy, housing and industrial facilities require financing structures that can extend well beyond the maturity of conventional credit. A functioning capital market can channel savings into such investments through equities, bonds and other instruments while allowing investors to diversify their portfolios.
But Uganda’s challenge is not simply to increase the number of securities available. It is to deepen demand and liquidity.
A larger number of listed companies would broaden investment opportunities, but listings will only become attractive to businesses if they can access meaningful pools of capital and if investors can trade securities efficiently. Likewise, stronger participation by households and institutional investors will depend on confidence, financial literacy, transparency and competitive returns.
The government’s call for innovation therefore points to a wider question about the structure of Uganda’s financial system: whether the country can build a capital market capable of supporting businesses throughout their growth cycle rather than primarily serving established corporations.
Alternative financing will become particularly important as Uganda’s development ambitions increase the demand for capital. Public resources alone are unlikely to meet the financing requirements of infrastructure, housing and industrialisation. Mobilising pension funds, institutional savings and private investment could provide an additional source of funding without placing the entire burden on the government’s balance sheet.
For the CMA, however, expansion brings a regulatory balancing act. Attracting more issuers and investors must be accompanied by strong disclosure requirements, effective supervision and investor protection. Rapid market growth without corresponding regulatory capacity could undermine the confidence the government is seeking to build.
The meeting, attended by Ministers Amos Lugoloobi and Cissy Mulondo and CMA Board Chairperson Saul Sseremba, signals that capital-market development is being treated as part of Uganda’s broader economic strategy rather than as a narrowly financial-sector issue.
The test will be whether policy commitments translate into deeper markets: more companies raising capital, more investors participating, greater liquidity and a wider range of long-term financial products.
If that happens, Uganda’s capital market could become an important bridge between domestic savings and the investment required to transform the economy. If participation remains concentrated and the pipeline of new issuers stays thin, the market’s contribution to the government’s growth ambitions will remain limited.
The next phase, therefore, is less about declaring the capital market a pillar of economic transformation and more about building the depth, scale and confidence required to make it one.
