At the 2nd Energy Convention held at Four Points by Sheraton on Friday, 24th July, key policy drivers and financial leaders gathered to tackle Uganda’s transition from power generation to universal access. The day commenced with a high-level dialogue and a ministerial plenary session, capped by robust panel discussions addressing the country’s ambitious $9.4 billion energy target.
Absa Bank Uganda Chief Financial Officer, Michael Segwaya, reinforced the banking sector’s role in realizing the national vision during the ministerial plenary attended by the State Minister for Energy, Hon. Sidronius Okaasai Opolot to open the conversation from a macroeconomic perspective.
“Uganda’s Tenfold Growth Strategy is an ambitious but achievable target,” Segwaya noted. “From this year’s UGX 2.07 trillion allocated to the Power and Renewables sector in the 2026/27 budget, it is clear leadership is focused in the right direction. However, as financial institutions, our role is to co-create long-term, bankable financial structures that turn ambitious masterplans into operational assets.”
Segwaya emphasized Absa’s end-to-end support across the energy value chain, citing landmark investments including the Bujagali Hydropower Project, a $50 million five-year facility advanced to UEDCL in December 2025 to connect over 200,000 households, and a UGX 11.085 billion concessional credit facility with the Uganda Energy Credit Capitalization Company (UECCC) under the Electricity Access Scale-Up Project (EASP).
While national installed capacity has reached 2,098 MW, overall electrification averages just 60%, dropping to 42.4% in rural areas where over 90% of households still rely on biomass fuels. With national targets set at 15,420 MW by 2030 and 52,482 MW by 2040, experts agreed that the core challenge lies in access, affordability, and project bankability rather than raw generation.
Benard Kamatte, Head of Financial Institutions Group at Absa Bank Uganda expanded on these execution bottlenecks during a panel session on blended finance instruments, green bond frameworks, and domestic bank assessment capacity pointing out that private capital is ready, provided projects are properly structured.
“Our biggest bottleneck is bankability. Capital follows risk mitigation and if we don’t have a good understanding of the technology we’re supporting, it becomes very difficult to pull capital into that space.” Kamatte explained that project preparation also still remains a challenge as frequently, not enough effort is put into feasibility studies, environmental assessments, and advisory.
Kamatte highlighted that commercial banks have demonstrated immense domestic capacity, having co-financed large-scale national infrastructure like the $5.6 billion EACOP oil and gas developments. To replicate this success in emerging renewables, mini-grids, and battery storage, he called on Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) to step in early to de-risk pre-construction phases and bridge technical data gaps.
He cited Absa’s blended finance partnership with the UECCC as a working blueprint where concessional donor and government funds lower the initial cost of capital, capping on-lending interest rates at 15% per annum to drive last-mile connections, institutional solar installations, and clean cooking technologies.
Beyond credit facilities, the discussions addressed carbon credit monetization and green bond structures as untapped mechanisms with immense potential to derisk green projects and pull additional private capital into Uganda’s energy ecosystem.
By bridging preparation gaps, leveraging blended finance structures, and building domestic evaluation capacity, Absa remains steadfast in funding the power infrastructure required to drive Uganda’s towards the $500 billion economic future.
