Charting the Fiscal Future of a Rising Nation
Uganda has entered a decisive phase in its development story, one defined by financial prudence, disciplined planning, and transformative ambition. The Public Financial Management (PFM) Reforms Strategy (July 2025–June 2030) is not a policy document to be shelved; it is the living blueprint of how Uganda will finance its dream of becoming a USD 500 billion economy. This Strategy establishes the architecture through which fiscal integrity, strategic investment, and service delivery will converge, forming the structural foundation upon which the Government’s Ten-Fold Growth Strategy will rest.
The Public Financial Management (PFM) Reforms Strategy gives this national aspiration conviction, structure, and scale, establishing a disciplined, accountable, and value-driven framework for managing public resources. Under the Minister’s vision, fiscal discipline is no longer limited to expenditure control; it now embodies the alignment of every shilling spent with Uganda’s growth priorities, ensuring efficiency, transparency, and measurable impact.
From rural electrification projects that illuminate communities, to industrial parks that create jobs, and investments in education and health that build human capital, the Strategy ensures that Uganda’s resources are channelled toward inclusive development and social transformation. The Minister emphasizes that efficiency, accountability, and value for money are the new pillars of fiscal management, transforming PFM from a procedural process into a strategic growth engine.
Through this renewed commitment, the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development positions itself not merely as a custodian of national finances, but as the engine room of Uganda’s Ten-Fold Growth Strategy, ensuring that each budget cycle propels the country closer to its goal of a USD 500 billion economy.
A Reform Strategy Built on Evidence and Collective Vision
The Public Financial Management (PFM) Reforms Strategy (FY2025/26–FY2029/30) stands as a unifying national commitment to fiscal excellence and service delivery transformation. It is the result of rigorous analysis, extensive stakeholder engagement, and the Government’s unwavering resolve to strengthen the management of public resources for the benefit of every Ugandan.
Designed under the stewardship of the Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Ramathan Ggoobi, the Strategy was shaped by an array of evidence-based assessments, including the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA 2024), the Public Investment Management Assessment (PIMA 2022), the Mid-Term Review of the Resource Enhancement and Accountability Programme (REAP), and the Mid-Term Review of the National Development Plan III. Beyond data, it reflects a wide national conversation enriched by diagnostic studies conducted with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other strategic partners. Using a SWOT approach to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats across Uganda’s PFM ecosystem, the analysis defined barriers to effective service delivery and mapped actionable reforms to address them.
This process was deeply inclusive. The Ministry of Finance recognizes the invaluable contributions of Uganda’s Development Partners including the Governments of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, as well as the World Bank, IMF, and European Union whose financial and technical support helped shape the Strategy. The Ministry also acknowledges the contributions of the Development Plan Implementation Programme Working Group, Central and Local Government entities, Civil Society Organizations led by Mr. Julius Mukunda of CSBAG, and members of the Private Sector, Academia, and Research Institutions who devoted their expertise and time to this national reform effort.
The PFM Reforms Strategy is therefore not only technically sound but deeply Ugandan in spirit and purpose. It is a blueprint for fiscal resilience, evidence-based governance, and efficient service delivery across key sectors such as Health, Education, Energy, Water, Agriculture, and Roads. It becomes a shared national roadmap built on evidence, strengthened through collaboration, and driven by a unified vision: ensuring that Uganda’s financial governance delivers real and lasting transformation for all citizens.
Reforms that Drive Growth, Accountability, and Impact
The PFM Reforms Strategy sets out an ambitious five-year roadmap to deepen fiscal credibility, optimize resource allocation, and enhance public service value. At its core are six strategic objectives: building a credible macro-fiscal framework that secures economic stability; mobilizing domestic resources to finance national transformation; modernizing planning, budgeting, and expenditure systems to achieve real-time efficiency; embedding transparency, oversight, and accountability across institutions; empowering local governments as the frontline of service delivery; and institutionalizing continuous monitoring, evaluation, and learning to support adaptive reform. Together, these objectives form the fiscal foundation upon which Uganda’s transformation journey is being constructed.
The Strategy also outlines three high-level outcomes: fiscal credibility and sustainability, allocative efficiency, and operational and service delivery efficiency. These outcomes reinforce Uganda’s commitment to a budgeting and expenditure system that is realistic, predictable, well-targeted, and focused on measurable citizen impact.
Laying the Groundwork for a New Fiscal Era
Uganda’s financial management evolution has been deliberate and progressive. Landmark reforms including the rollout of the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS), the Treasury Single Account (TSA), Programme-Based Budgeting (PBB), and the modernization of audit and debt management systems have strengthened the nation’s capacity to manage public finances effectively. The PFM Reforms Strategy builds on this foundation, ensuring that fiscal systems evolve in tandem with the nation’s industrial, technological, and digital ambitions. In essence, Uganda is not merely reforming how it spends; it is redefining how it delivers growth through spending.
Public Financial Management: The Financial Backbone of Development
The success of Uganda’s Ten-Fold Growth Strategy ultimately rests on how effectively the nation mobilizes, allocates, and accounts for its resources. Public Financial Management forms the invisible architecture that ensures national development plans are fully financed, transparently implemented, and rigorously monitored. Through credible budgeting and disciplined financial management, PFM strengthens investor confidence, reduces wastage and corruption, enhances efficiency in critical sectors, and guarantees the macroeconomic stability that underpins sustained growth. In this sense, PFM is not bureaucracy, it is the engine of transformation.
Public Investment Management (PIM): Turning Projects into National Productivity
Uganda’s aspiration to reach a USD 500 billion economy demands a public investment system in which every project delivers measurable value. Public Investment Management (PIM) ensures that every road, hospital, dam, and digital infrastructure project contributes meaningfully to national productivity.
Historically, Uganda faced challenges such as delayed projects, cost overruns, and weak feasibility assessments. The modernized PIM framework directly addresses these issues by strengthening project planning, appraisal, and selection; enhancing procurement through the full rollout of the e-Government Procurement system; improving implementation and oversight through digital monitoring tools; and ensuring optimal maintenance of public assets through a national asset management policy.
These reforms mark a decisive shift from merely executing projects to ensuring performance-based investment. The Strategy integrates climate screening, digital monitoring, and accrual accounting into Uganda’s investment governance ecosystem, making PIM the operational arm of PFM. Together, the reforms guarantee that every public investment is viable, sustainable, and aligned with national growth priorities.
A new era of smarter investment is unfolding, one built on independent project appraisal, mandatory quality standards, digitized procurement, disciplined execution, intelligent asset utilization, climate resilience, and comprehensive accounting. Uganda is transitioning from a country that builds projects to one that builds productivity. Every shilling invested must now answer a single national question: How does this project move Uganda forward?
PFM as the Financial Engine of the Ten-Fold Growth Strategy
Uganda’s Ten-Fold Growth Strategy demands fiscal systems that amplify investment, productivity, and value creation. PFM connects policy ambition to financial execution, ensuring that stable domestic revenues support long-term investments, evidence-based project selection boosts economic returns, transparent budgeting builds investor confidence, and strengthened service delivery drives inclusive growth. Through these pathways, every public shilling is positioned to translate into output, outcome, and opportunity.
Fiscal Sustainability and Domestic Resource Mobilization
Uganda’s long-term fiscal independence will be built on the strength of its domestic revenue systems. The Strategy lays out a clear path toward broadening the tax base, reducing illicit financial flows, enhancing non-tax revenue sources, and modernizing tax administration to promote equity, efficiency, and compliance. A strong domestic revenue base will shield the economy from external shocks and pave the way for a development model that is self-financing, sustainable, and sovereign.
Decentralized Fiscal Power: Strengthening Local Governance
Uganda’s transformation is unfolding across districts, cities, and communities where service delivery meets everyday citizen needs. The PFM Reforms Strategy strengthens fiscal decentralization by equipping local governments with the tools, systems, and autonomy necessary to manage resources effectively and accountably. Through the expansion of IFMS to all local governments, strengthened programme-based budgeting, improved local revenue mobilization, transparent procurement, and extensive capacity building, local authorities are positioned as key partners in Uganda’s growth story.
Accountability that Builds Public Trust
Uganda’s commitment to transparency is both deliberate and measurable. With strengthened audit functions, real-time digital oversight, and citizen-oriented open budget portals, accountability has become institutionalized across the public sector. The target of implementing 65% of external audit recommendations by 2030 reflects a commitment to fiscal governance rooted in trust, oversight, and integrity.
Performance, Learning, and Measurable Results
To ensure continuous improvement, Uganda’s PFM system integrates a new Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning framework modelled on the PEFA approach. This provides ongoing, data-driven feedback on budget credibility, fiscal balance, expenditure efficiency, audit implementation, and progress toward Ten-Fold Growth milestones. The PFM reforms are no longer about compliance but about results, accountability, and transformation.
By 2030, Uganda envisions a PFM system that is credible, digital, efficient, and citizen-centred. The expected outcomes include stronger fiscal balance, higher allocative efficiency, faster service delivery, improved public trust, and a government culture grounded in financial discipline. Every shilling, every project, and every report will serve as evidence of a nation rising through fiscal excellence.
