The World Bank has resumed major financial support to Uganda following a suspension of new lending over the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, a senior Finance Ministry official said on Monday, highlighting renewed concessional financing and efforts to mobilise private investment.
Moses Bekabye, Technical Advisor for Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, said Uganda’s relationship with the World Bank and other development partners had strengthened after a period of strained engagement.
“The World Bank, of course we had the hiccups around homosexuality and all those kinds of things, but the World Bank has come back in a very big way, and the IMF,” Bekabye said during the launch of the World Bank’s Uganda Country Partnership Framework (2026–2035) and the Uganda Public Finance Review in Kampala.
He said multilateral development institutions remain critical to financing Uganda’s long-term development agenda because they provide affordable funding and help attract private capital.
“The World Bank and our multilateral development partners can actually provide affordable financing, long-term financing, and also provide guarantees and de-risk private investment,” Bekabye said.
“Through MIGA or other guarantee mechanisms, they can actually leverage private equity, which is so important, because concessional financing itself is not going to be enough.”
Bekabye said government was also working with the World Bank to improve implementation of externally financed projects after acknowledging that substantial funds remain undisbursed.
“One of the biggest constraints we have is absorption. We borrow money. Right now we have significant resources sitting in the World Bank treasury, not being disbursed yet,” he said.
He said the government and the World Bank were implementing the $200 million PIMPLUS programme to improve project implementation and speed up the utilisation of development financing.
“Those are some of the things that we are discussing in the PIMPLUS programme, which is a $200 million programme that we are implementing together with the World Bank in order to improve absorption of these funds,” Bekabye said.
He added that beyond financing, the private sector has a critical role to play in delivering Uganda’s tenfold growth strategy through equity investment, public-private partnerships and technology transfer.
“The private sector is going to be providing equity, the PPPs we talked about, and also co-financing with the government,” Bekabye said.
“I think there’s a lot that the private sector can bring on board, in addition to financing, but also good governance and ensuring that they provide feedback on what is working and what is not working.”
The World Bank suspended new public financing to Uganda in 2023 following the enactment of the Anti-Homosexuality Act but has since resumed lending after introducing measures aimed at ensuring funded projects comply with its anti-discrimination policies. Monday’s event marked the launch of the Bank’s new 10-year Country Partnership Framework, which outlines its support for Uganda through 2035.