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More French companies keen on exploring Uganda’s business landscape, particularly in value addition
ANALYSIS | RONALD MUSOKE | France is set to deepen its economic engagement with Uganda in 2025, committing billions of euros in investments with a strong focus on local entrepreneurship and business communities.
Xavier Sticker, the French Ambassador to Uganda told a select group of journalists on Jan.24 at his residence in Kampala that French companies will remain Uganda’s leading foreign investors, with total investments projected to reach US$4 billion (Shs 15 trillion) over the next three years.
“Half of the foreign direct investment in Uganda comes from French companies, owing to a large extent to the oil and gas sector, but not only that,” he said, “It’s also thanks to the presence of the over 40 French companies present with offices, headquarters, factories in Uganda.”
“Beyond investments, those companies bring jobs, skills, opportunities to scale up, to trade, and enable Uganda to also create more value in its own production, in its own output, and make the country stronger (economically).”
Accompanied by Thomas Pelletier, the president of the Kampala Business Club, and Marc Trouyet, the Country Director of the French Development Agency (AFD), Amb. Sticker expressed optimism about the increasing interest from French businesses. He highlighted recent and upcoming visits by French business delegations keen on exploring Uganda’s business landscape, particularly in value addition.
Amb. Sticker said, French companies from the mining sector will this month visit Kampala and attend the EU-Uganda Business Forum while another 11 companies with expertise in water management will visit and participate in an international water congress schduled to take place in the same month (February). He said the French Embassy in Kampala and AFD are also working on other business delegations with expertise in agribusiness and the agri-food sector to visit in the second half of this year.
France keen on water infrastructure projects
Away from the ever-growing business partnership between Uganda and France, Amb. Sticker said, the two countries are also expected this year to “take their partnership on infrastructure development on another level,” in their collaborative quest to promote entrepreneurship.
He said, currently, the French Development Agency’s portfolio in Uganda is worth about €1 billion (Shs 4 trillion), most of which is based on highly concessional loans or loans that are blended with grants. The water sector represents almost half of that portfolio. And the main deliverables for this year will be, again, in the water sector, he said.
“In the coming weeks, (we plan) to start working on developing a water supply network for half a million Ugandans in the north of Kampala, and this will be on the back of a long-standing tradition of cooperation on water in Kampala,” Amb. Sticker said.
“As you may know, the Katosi water treatment plant was developed by National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NW&SC), with the support of AFD as its main source of funding.” Beyond providing potable water for Kampala residents, Amb. Sticker said AFD is also working with NW&SC to improve water supply in other Ugandan cities including; Masaka, Lira, Hoima and Fort Portal.
“We look forward to the completion of the feasibility studies that are in the process of being finalized for those towns, and that will mean one million more Ugandans with access to clean water,” he said.
Energy, agriculture and entrepreneurship
Beyond the water infrastructure projects, France is diversifying its partnerships to include energy, agriculture, and entrepreneurship. Amb. Sticker said AFD is collaborating with Ugandan public and private banks to provide financial resources and technical support for small businesses and smallholder farmers.
“We are working with Ugandan banks to support SACCOs, agribusinesses, and smallholder farmers, particularly in climate-smart agriculture,” added Marc Trouyet, the AFD Director for Uganda. “Through PROPARCO (AFD subsidiary), we are offering lower-interest loans to entrepreneurs, with a focus on resilience against climate change.”
Trouyet said AFD also intends to work with the Uganda government to support it in the transition towards a more climate resilient economy. “This is a discussion we have started,” he said.
Climate proofing Uganda’s infrastructure
“We will work with the National Planning Authority (NPA) and the Ministry of Finance to see how in the decision-making process of the government, especially when it comes to public infrastructure projects to be built in any given year, which ones are given due consideration (in the context of) resilience to climate change.”
“We are also going to work with several experts coming from France to work with the government to look at which public investments should be made,” he said.
“They will support the government in improving its capability of identifying projects that are climate resilient, precisely to address the concern that, because of climate change, more and more public infrastructure projects are going to be at risk of being damaged by climate change effects.”
Trouyet added that France also intends to work with the Uganda government, particularly the Ministry of Water and Environment on updating the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) describes NDCs as “those efforts made by contracting parties to reduce national carbon emissions as a way of preventing or coping to the impacts of climate change.”
“You know that under the Paris Climate Agreement, there is this obligation for every contracting party to set its own objectives. So, what we are going to do is supporting the government update its objectives by identifying the economic impact of each decision that it will take,” he said.
This, Trouyet said, will be a modelling exercise by French macro-economists who will work with their counterparts in the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Water and Environment and experts at Makerere University to model different scenarios of government decisions and how they could play out in terms of economic impact.
“It’s not about providing financial resources, but having long-term partnerships, long-term dialogues about policies, sharing knowledge, expertise, experience, and on the basis of the trust that exists between our institutions, and being even more relevant to each other,” noted Amb. Sticker.
“And that applies, for instance, to climate, in view of greening the public policies, greening the public infrastructure, to make sure that as they are developed, they are developed in a spirit and on the basis of principles that are those to which we have subscribed under the Paris Climate Agreement.”
“(Ultimately) we aim at strengthening our relations, and for that, we need to rely on the communities that we have, and that need to build shared interests,” Amb. Sticker said.
Cancer treatment, affordable housing, and education
Going forward, Amb. Sticker said the France-Uganda partnership will soon expand into the areas of oncology (cancer research and treatment) and affordable housing. He also noted that in 2025, “Francophonie” will be a key component from the French side of reaching out to Ugandans by providing opportunities, and building communities of shared interests on that basis.
“By that, I mean that we have already a number of cooperations with Ugandan universities, mobility for Ugandan students between Uganda and France, but we have also started to work on secondary schools so that the pupils who are younger can benefit from the latest and the most modern methods to learn French, and to do that in a way that makes it attractive,” he said.
“We have partnered with the Association of Teachers of French in Uganda, and with Alliance Française de Kampala, to develop those activities and programmes outside Kampala, with summer camps, and with the provision of training options for the teachers, and we hope to structure that even more this year with the Ministry of Education of Uganda.”
Amb. Sticker said the École Française de Kampala, the French school, and the Alliance Française are the physical embodiment, and the bricks and mortar structure around which the cooperation between Ugandans and French, who are interested in culture, revolve.
These will further be developed in 2025, with the French school becoming a place where students can go on until the A-level, with the whole curriculum. The Alliance Française will build up its cultural programme and put more emphasis on culture, which is not only French culture, but Francophone culture and Ugandan culture.
Kampala Geopolitics Conference
The other area where France hopes to strengthen its partnership with Uganda this year, is in the area of debates, particularly the he Kampala Geopolitics Conference, which has been taking place every year since 2016.
“It’s important to have debates, and to have the space to hold them,” he said. This year’s edition will take place in April thanks to the ongoing partnership with the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Foundation, and Makerere University.
“We hope to make Kampala a place for vivid debates, not only at the scale of Uganda, but more broadly, East Africa; for those discussions that are broadcast and widely covered, also included by you as you attend or follow the event.”
Amb. Sticker said Uganda and France will also continue standing for peace, security, stability in East Africa. “This is an area where we actually have built from scratch,” he said. “We already have a cooperation that has been there for a number of years, and, well, against terrorism; it’s about partnering to ensure that the African forces in Somalia have the means and capabilities required to stabilize the situation in that country, and similarly in eastern DRC, in the fight against terrorism.”
Amb. Sticker said France is committed to peace and stability in the region, on the basis of its responsibilities in the United Nations Security Council, where it is the pen holder for the texts drafted by the Security Council on DR Congo.
For almost three years, Amb. Sticker noted, there has been an engagement President Emmanuel Macron to support the regional mediations, the Nairobi process and the Rwanda process. It is in that context that recently, in December, last year, France’s newly appointed special envoy for the Great Lakes region visited the region. “As a country, we intend to continue our efforts in supporting the regional processes to make East Africa peaceful and to enable its inhabitants reap the benefits from peace in this region.”
