Uganda’s hopes of becoming an upper middle income country by 2040 hinge on moving beyond subsistence farming by modernizing and digitizing the agricultural sector.
The Government of Uganda views private sector led growth as a way to transform farming into a modern commercial enterprise, increase competitiveness, and gain access to markets. This transformation can be observed in real-time on the oil palm farms of Uganda’s Kalangala District.
Here, oil palm farmers have seized an opportunity to better their lives, orchestrated through a public-private producer partnership.
Since 1998, the partnership between the Government of Uganda, Oil Palm Uganda Limited, and the Kalangala Oil Palm Growers Trust has been diversifying the local economy, providing jobs and sustainable incomes to farmers, and alleviating poverty through oil palm cultivation. The local processing of palm oil is also conducive to environmental sustainability as it is fully traceable with digital technology and reduces the need to import crude palm oil from Southeast Asia.
Subsequently, SAP introduced a cloud-based technology component to the partnership, a commercial agreement that has enabled the integration of 2,000 oil palm producers into local and regional agricultural value chains.
These outcomes would likely not have occurred without effective development co-operation, including the support of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the alignment of commercial interests with development goals. Such co-operation with private business is a demonstration of the Kampala Principles for effective private sector engagement.
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