Ambrose Murangira

On Thursday, 11 June 2026, Uganda listened as the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development presented the National Budget for Financial Year 2026/2027 at Kololo Independence Grounds. The theme was ‘full monetization of Uganda’s economy through commercial agriculture, industrialization, services, digital transformation and market access’.

It was a budget about growth, jobs, production, and wealth creation. But one question remained hanging in the air: where are persons with disabilities in this national transformation?

Uganda has made commendable progress in laws and policies. The Constitution recognises the rights of persons with disabilities. Uganda ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Persons with Disabilities Act, 2020, provides a legal framework for accessibility, participation, and equal opportunity. We have disability representation at all levels.

On paper, Uganda speaks the language of inclusion. But in national planning and budgeting, persons with disabilities are still too often given tokenism.

The new budget is a good example. It mentions the National Special Grant for Persons with Disabilities, which has supported thousands of beneficiaries across local governments. This is important and should be appreciated. But a grant is not inclusion. A grant may help a person survive. It does not necessarily open the classroom, the farm, the market, the digital platform, the health facility, or the workplace.

That is the central weakness of the budget. Persons with disabilities appear mainly as beneficiaries of social protection, not as farmers, students, entrepreneurs, innovators, workers, taxpayers, and wealth creators. Yet these are the very identities the budget claims to promote for every Ugandan.

Take education. Uganda speaks strongly about inclusive education. But inclusion is not achieved by enrolling a child with a disability in school and leaving the barriers untouched. A Deaf learner needs sign language support, trained teachers, visual learning materials, and accessible examinations. A blind learner needs braille, screen readers, tactile materials, and accessible science and mathematics tools. A learner with a physical disability needs ramps, accessible toilets, adapted furniture, and safe transport. A learner with an intellectual or psychosocial disability may need flexible teaching methods, psychosocial support, and individualized learning assistance.

Without these reasonable accommodations, the child is counted but not included.

The same applies to agriculture. The government rightly identifies agriculture as central to Uganda’s economy. Official sources show that agriculture employs about 70 percent of the working population. But where are persons with disabilities in the agrifood budget? Where are the targets for farmers with disabilities in extension services, irrigation schemes, mechanization centers, cooperatives, agricultural credit, and value chains? Where are adapted tools, accessible farmer trainings, sign language interpretation, braille and audio materials, accessible digital platforms, and deliberate mobilization through organizations of persons with disabilities?

A Deaf farmer excluded from an extension meeting because no interpreter was planned is not lazy. A blind farmer unable to use a digital agriculture platform because it is inaccessible is not backward. A person with a physical disability unable to reach a demonstration garden because transport and terrain were not considered is not incapable. These are not personal failures. They are planning failures.

We see the same risk in wealth-creation programs such as PDM, Emyooga, youth funds, women’s funds, agricultural credit, and small-business financing. If community mobilization is not accessible, if forms are not usable, if loan information is not available in formats that persons with disabilities can understand, and if local leaders do not deliberately include them, then these programs may carry the name “for all” while leaving many behind.

Digital transformation also needs caution. More internet, smartphones, mobile money and e-government services are good. But digital progress without accessibility creates a new form of exclusion. Government websites, mobile applications, online forms, public information videos, and digital payment systems must be accessible to persons with different impairments. Otherwise, Uganda will build a digital economy where persons with disabilities are connected in statistics but disconnected in reality.

This is why Uganda must move from disability mention to disability budgeting.

Real inclusion requires a twin-track approach. Persons with disabilities must be deliberately mainstreamed in all national programs, while disability-specific interventions are also funded. That means budgeting for reasonable accommodation, assistive technologies, accessible infrastructure, inclusive communication, disability-disaggregated data, OPD participation and accountability.

The budget has already been approved by Parliament and the Executive. But implementation is still ahead. That is where change can still happen.

Newly appointed ministers should not wait for the next budget cycle. Even where their ministry budgets were not designed inclusively, they can issue ministerial directives requiring that at least 10 percent of this financial year’s ministries’ targets deliberately reach persons with disabilities. Since recent census reporting places disability prevalence at about 13 percent, a 10 percent target is modest, practical, and fair.

The Ministry of Agriculture can require 10 percent inclusion in selected extension, input, credit, and value chain programs. Education can require accessibility and reasonable accommodation in schools and teacher training. ICT can require all public digital platforms to meet accessibility standards. Works can enforce accessibility in roads, markets, public buildings, and transportation. Health can strengthen rehabilitation, assistive technology, and accessible communication. Tourism can make visitor sites, hotels, and training institutions accessible. Gender, Labor, and Social Development can coordinate and monitor disability inclusion across government, rather than carry it alone.

Parliament, the Equal Opportunities Commission, the National Council for Persons with Disabilities, the National Planning Authority, the Ministry of Finance, local governments, and organizations of persons with disabilities all have a role. They must ask one simple question: how many persons with disabilities are benefiting, and what barriers have been removed?

Uganda does not need another beautiful promise. It needs disciplined implementation. A national budget is not just a financial document. It is a moral statement about who belongs in the country’s future. If Uganda is serious about full monetisation of the economy, then “full” must include persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities are not asking for pity. They are asking for systems that work. Uganda has already promised inclusion in law. Now it must deliver it through budgets, targets, and action.

This article was also published in the Uganda Daily Monitor on 19th June 2026 https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/our-budget-should-walk-the-talk-on-pwds-issues-5501872

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