The 2017 edition of the annual Home is Best Summit will take place on December 20 at Jinja, the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), the organisers of the event, have announced.
UIA is mandated to promote investments in Uganda, and in a statement indicates that the one-day summit will be held under the theme, ‘Rethinking Small and Medium Enterprises Financing’. The event is organised during the traditional December home coming season by Ugandans in the Diaspora, and about 250 participants are expected to attend the Summit.
“These will include Uganda’s business community, especially those based in Jinja, Ugandans living in the Diaspora, business development services providers, and investment financiers, among others,” the statement indicates in part.
According to UIA, the Summit now is on a rotational basis and take places in different regions of Uganda. The last meetings took place in Gulu, Masaka and Kampala in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively, with the emphasis being on the appropriation of the Diaspora Remittances to indigenous for home welfare and development.
“This year, the summit is planned to be held in Jinja, according to the UIA Strategic Plan 2016-21,” a statement says in part.
During this year’s Summit the UIA seeks to strengthen the linkages between SMEs in the priority sectors of agro processing, tourism, ICT and mineral beneficiation, as well as services, and organized Diaspora funds and investment clubs/groups.
“This will provide a platform for the enhancement of SMEs and a viable ‘soft landing’ for Diaspora remittances,” reads the statement.
The summit will also be an opportunity for the Ugandans in the Diaspora to engage with the existing service providers and producers of goods that they can take advantage of while still in the Diaspora and when setting up their business.
Main sponsors of the Summit include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bank of Uganda and the Private Sector Foundation Uganda. Other Summit stakeholders are the Busoga Kingdom, Members of Parliament, Local Governments and the Private sector with leading industrialists like BIDCO, Kakira Sugar Works and Nile Agro, also taking participating.
Government will use the occasion to sensitise Ugandans in the Diaspora to know about their tax obligations, incentives. The Summit will also act a link between Ugandans living abroad and the existing business community but also can use the event to set up joint venture partnerships.
The Home is Best Summit coincides with the annual Diaspora Social Networking Gala and Business Breakfast organized by the Uganda Diaspora Network, a forum that brings together Ugandans who live and work abroad. They use the platform to celebrate their contributions overseas and also use it to share their time, talents, ideas and expertise whilst inspiring the next generation of Ugandan leaders.
The Summit seeks to mainly reaffirm the Diaspora commitment to participate in the National Development Plans at all levels and evaluate the Diaspora achievements in investments.
Among others, the Summit seeks to further strengthen the Uganda Diaspora partnership through investment and trade, get Diaspora’s direct involvement in the re-industrialization of Eastern Uganda in general and Jinja in particular and exploit the expert knowledge the people in the Diaspora have acquired to create jobs in Uganda.
Delegates at the Summit will focus on financial inclusion and the impact Diaspora can have on the development of the economy, small and medium investment opportunities, the regulatory environment, Diaspora engagement and support, business to business networking sessions
There will also be SME and government service delivery exhibition. The delegates will enjoy side events like a networking cocktail as well as excursions and tours around the sights and sounds of the Jinja area.
The 2016 Home is the Best Summit was held in Kampala at the Hotel Africana under the theme ‘Diaspora Investment –Bridge to Vision 2040 ’.
The core objective of the summit was to strengthen the Uganda Diaspora partnership with private sector through trade, investment and transfer of expertise and technology, as well as interaction with the public sector.
Government takes partnership with people in Diaspora as very critical to the country’s economic growth and development and as evidenced recently, migrant remittances to Uganda surpassed earnings from her major traditional export, coffee, growing from US$0.81 billion in 2011 to US$1 billion in 2016.
