OPINION

By Dr Hillary Musoke Kisanja

The Ugandan diaspora is a large, vibrant and growing community. It is estimated that over 1,500,000 Ugandans live abroad. More importantly, we recognise that the role of the Ugandan diaspora in our economic transformation is undisputed.

Every year, through their efforts, they remit trillions of shillings to their relatives and friends back home either for welfare, for small individual projects or both. These consistent efforts have significantly energised our economies.

Currently, the Government is promoting a new paradigm of manufacturing for export in value addition.

For decades, Ugandans have exported raw materials to their disadvantage. The value of raw materials is a fraction of the price of finished products. Available statistics show that Uganda is importing a lot of products that we ideally should have been making.

Uganda has low processing levels and large unemployed youth population. Both factors are a great opportunity for the country to engage in value addition because it has affordable labour, many of whom are educated.

While a new thinking is emerging, that Ugandans can earn more money by producing finished products, there is the need to produce goods to the required globally accepted standards.

By virtue of the diaspora’s exposure and best practices, the Government has been keen on enhancing their participation in the value addition paradigm. This is a great opportunity for the diaspora to take advantage of.

Furthermore, most Ugandans in the diaspora are engaged in employment as opposed to entrepreneurship. While this is good, it is insufficient to create wealth. Ugandans in the diaspora invest some of their income back home either as individuals, in partnerships or in corporate entities in the country.

Many wealth creation options have been proposed over time. One of these is the diaspora bonds, in which the Government offers one the opportunity to buy bonds that mature over a period of time, with a guarantee of interest.

This investment model allows your money to work for you without you putting in the time and energy required for a business work.

The second option is value addition. Many producers in the country are engaged in agriculture and other forms of primary production. If they are brought together or partnered with, they are bound to transform their produce into finished products.

Engaging in value addition is a new approach to doing business. Considering that the diaspora is situated in developed markets, they can become the kingpins of export promotion of the very processed goods they have made.

The third area that we would like to interest you in is the Uganda Securities Exchange. Our stock exchange has numerous companies that have floated shares.

Ugandans in the diaspora know how the stock market works and can make use of this opportunity to create wealth.

Furthermore, the diaspora can engage in skills and technology transfer whereby Ugandans living abroad can be employed by companies back home to work while living abroad. They can also train our people and earn from doing so.

Related to this is business process outsourcing, which involves Ugandans back home working for companies abroad remotely. Our engineers, accountants and other professionals can all work for companies abroad.

The Government has instituted some of the best policies for doing business in the world, some of which included a thorough liberalisation of the economy, the rule of commercial law and tax incentives for both local and foreign investors.

The world today needs us to embrace a paradigm encompassed in three areas for sustainable wealth creation; technology, business, and culture.

The writer is a private secretary to the President of Uganda in charge of youth in agriculture, value addition and export promotion