“The significance of what Uganda Development Bank has undertaken goes far beyond the adoption of a new platform or approach. It represents a fundamental shift in the role a development finance institution must play in shaping a more competitive, high-value economy on the principles of sustainability.
Development banks cannot limit their role to financing the opportunities that already exist. In economies seeking structural transformation, they must take the lead in creating and shaping new investment opportunities, competitive enterprises and industries.
What distinguishes UDB is its commitment to assume this larger responsibility. Leadership is ultimately demonstrated not by following established practice, but by recognising when established practice is no longer sufficient for the challenges before us.
UDB’s decision to take the lead in generating demand for true sustainable finance and investment therefore marks neither an award nor the completion of a journey. It marks the assumption of a historic responsibility: to demonstrate how a development bank moves beyond financing the opportunities presented to it and begins systematically creating and shaping the investments, enterprises and industries through which the economic transformation of a nation takes place.
Uganda now has an opportunity to demonstrate a new model for development finance—one that could set a new direction for national development finance institutions across Africa and, indeed, around the world.
Under the leadership of Dr Patricia Ojangole, I believe UDB has the ambition, institutional commitment and courage to turn that responsibility into results—and to demonstrate the role a development bank must play when the world is changing faster than conventional models of development can respond.”
— Arshad Rab
Chairman, International Council of Sustainability Standards for Value-Driven Financial Institutions and CEO, European Organisation for Sustainable Development (EOSD)
