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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda’s accelerating shift toward digital finance is widening the very gaps policymakers have pledged to close, with experts warning that persons with disabilities (PWDs) remain fundamentally excluded from emerging financial systems. This concern took centre stage at the 5th Annual Disability Symposium held at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel, where sector leaders argued that accessibility has not kept pace with the country’s digital ambitions.
Despite years of policy commitments and institution-level pledges, stakeholders said the structural barriers that hinder PWDs from fully engaging in financial and digital services persist, often in ways that new technology is amplifying rather than resolving.
Dorothy Najjengo, the Incubators and Accelerators Process Lead at Outbox Uganda, said the mismatch between digital growth and accessibility is now a defining challenge in Uganda’s inclusion agenda.
“The theme today is financial inclusion, a key to socio-economic empowerment for persons with disability,” she said.
“Under the 10X programme, we want to ensure that 125,000 persons with disabilities are fully participating within the digital economy.”
However, Najjengo acknowledged that the programme now midway through its three-year pilot, faces serious measurement challenges. The target audience of 61,000 PWDs remains difficult to quantify in practice because many barriers remain unresolved at the product design and implementation stages.
“Accessibility is the main issue,” she said. “If you are pushing out an intervention around access to finance, a person with a disability must actually be able to access that finance.”
To bridge this gap, Outbox is promoting reasonable accommodation within digital systems through assistive technologies such as TalkBack, JAWS and Braille-based interfaces tools that allow users with visual or other impairments to navigate platforms independently.
The symposium also spotlighted the private sector’s slow pace in adopting a rights-based approach to inclusion. BrighterMonday Uganda’s Country Lead, Pamela Kabahesi, said many organisations continue to treat disability inclusion as philanthropy instead of integrating it into core business strategy.
“We have heard today that many organisations still treat disability inclusivity as charity,” Kabahesi said.
“It is not charity. Persons with disabilities have a right to access financial inclusion as much as the next Ugandan.”
She added that while some PWDs have fought their way through the system, their individual success stories cannot overshadow widespread structural exclusion.
“There is still a lot of work to be done to ensure that persons with disabilities can access the same economic opportunities as us,” she said.
“Our partnership with the Mastercard Foundation requires us to include PWDs intentionally, and this symposium helps to strengthen that commitment.”
Her comments reflect a growing recognition that inclusion must be embedded across entire organisational processes from recruitment and customer service to product development and technology design.
Opening the event, the Minister of State for Disability Affairs, Hon. Hellen Grace Asamo, said that while Uganda has made notable policy strides, the practical implementation remains weak.
“This theme amplifies awareness about the importance of having finances to cater for people with disabilities and their diverse needs,” she said, calling on institutions to drive sustained public dialogue and to create systems adaptable to the differing needs within the disability community.
Her remarks highlighted an uncomfortable reality: that equal access to financial services is still far from achieved, despite being enshrined in national frameworks.
BrighterMonday Uganda received an Award of Excellence in the Business and Entrepreneurship category for its workplace inclusion efforts, an acknowledgement of the incremental but important progress being made by some private-sector players.
The symposium, organised by NUDIPU in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and Outbox Uganda, forms part of the lead-up to the national commemoration of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3 in Mubende.
