As the government of Uganda promotes Vision 2040, the INVITE Trust is positioned to guide investment in line with the Tenfold Growth Strategy of increasing the country’s economic growth from USD 50 billion to USD 500 billion by 2040. This was high on the agenda at the strategic meeting held on July 15, 2025, between the INVITE Trust Investment Committee (IC) and the Trustees (Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MoFPED) – represented by the Permanent Secretary/Secretary to Treasury – Mr. Ramathan Ggoobi) and the Bank of Uganda (BoU) – represented by the Governor – Mr Michael Atingi-Ego).
With the release of the first tranche of Ugx 170 billion of the INVITE funding from the World Bank, amounting to Ugx 800 billion, Mr. Ramathan Ggoobi emphasised the importance of aligning the INVITE Trust to the holistic government economic growth design. Some of the areas highlighted were: increased manufacturing value addition of 20% to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), more investment in manufacturing from 1% to 4%, an increased 30% of industry production to 60% from the current 30%, as well as investment in manufacturing from 5% to 15%. Mr. Ggoobi further guided on increasing the market share to 40% from 26%, backed by increased value export from 10.6% to 13%. He said, “The success of the INIVTE Trust is about macroeconomic stability”, adding that it would make a “significant contribution to the foreign exchange,” and manufacturing should be made a mainstay of the country.
The Governor BoU, Mr. Michael Atingi-Ego, said that INVITE is instrumental and, with effective implementation, would support the stability of the exchange rate. Mr Atingi-Ego also stated that the INVITE project would enable “diversification of increased market for Uganda to have comparative advantage in the region, support agro-industrialisation and socio-economic transformation.
The Chairperson of the IC, Dr Tom Buringuriza, in his remarks, provided insight on the strides and setup of the INVITE Trust to implement the disbursement of the World Bank financing for Uganda’s manufacturing and exporting value chains. These include, among others, the recruitment of a Trust Manager to manage operations of the Trust, and the task ahead of the fulfilment of the disbursement to ensure the right beneficiaries receive and refund the monies loaned out.
The INVITE Trust, which is implementing the World Bank financed project together with Private Sector Foundation (PSFU), is headed by an Investment Committee (IC) comprising five members. The composition of the committee members consists of three independent members; one chosen according to relevant skills and qualifications in the financial sector, another for legal expertise, and one from the private sector, while two are MoFPED-nominated.
