Ernest-Ssekisonge-Managing-Director-Kasi-Insight
With the Bank of Uganda’s January 2027 deadline for mandatory financial sector compliance fast approaching, businesses are facing an unavoidable reality. To help navigate this transition, Ernest Ssekisonge, Managing Director of decision intelligence firm Kasi Insight, has outlined a practical roadmap urging Ugandan businesses to abandon rigid, “copy-and-paste” Western sustainability frameworks in favor of a localized model.
Speaking to corporate leaders and policy experts at the 2nd Annual East Africa ESG Summit hosted by Capital One Group on June 12th, 2026, Ssekisonge exposed a crucial gap between corporate willingness and operational capacity.
Survey data, conducted jointly by Kasi Insight and marketing agency Capital One Group EA, highlights the urgency of this transition. The findings reveal that while 77 percent of surveyed Ugandan firms recognize ESG as a non-negotiable business priority, an overwhelming 89 percent confirmed they are instead awaiting a simplified, locally adapted reporting structure better suited to Uganda’s unique economic environment.
“We cannot simply adopt Western ESG frameworks that are borrowed and transplanted directly down here,” Ssekisonge cautioned during his presentation. “The execution environments are completely different. As practitioners, businesses, and policymakers, we must fill the gap by designing a structurally and contextually relevant framework that speaks directly to Ugandan realities.”
To achieve this, he proposed that practitioners and regulators pivot toward delivering practical, straightforward tools designed for everyday enterprise realities. Without this transition, he warned that ESG compliance will remain a costly luxury reserved for a few bigger corporations rather than a driver of broad-based economic growth.
According to research figures presented at the summit, 82 percent of large corporate enterprises and 92 percent of financial and commercial institutions expressed readiness for a Uganda-specific framework.
Crucially, 86.7 percent of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) signaled an urgent need for practical reporting templates designed for smaller operational scales.
Highlighting the economic importance of small enterprises, Ssekisonge noted that SMEs represent the primary engine of commerce, employment, tax revenue, and domestic growth in Uganda.
Bringing them into the sustainability ecosystem, he argued, requires positioning advisory institutions such as research platforms, PR advisories, professional accounting bodies, and technical consultancies as trusted partners who deliver usable, impact-driven tools, rather than burdening smaller entities with excessive compliance requirements.
To lead this transition, Ssekisonge outlined a four-pillar strategy that links local ESG adoption to measurable business results.
“If sustainability is going to take root here, it cannot feel like an academic burden imposed from the outside,” Ssekisonge stressed during his presentation. “It must deliver a clear, measurable return for the business while moving the needle on our national priorities.”
Under his framework, the process begins by protecting corporate reputation, utilizing primary market data to build authentic stakeholder trust, and doing away with fake environmental claims and reports.
To achieve this, Ssekisonge emphasized the need for practical application through accessible toolkits, simplified templates, and straightforward audit structures that allow local management teams to track metrics without disrupting daily operations.
Beyond operational simplicity, those streamlined tools are designed to unlock tangible financial returns for business owners. Demonstrating strong ESG credentials will enable enterprises, particularly small and medium-sized businesses to secure affordable credit, expand regional trade partnerships, and lower operational costs.
Ultimately, the framework ties these enterprise results to national strategic alignment, linking private-sector sustainability targets directly to the government’s 10-Fold Economic Growth Agenda.
Ssekisonge’s four-pillar framework arrives at a decisive moment for East African commerce. With neighboring countries like Kenya already enforcing climate disclosure frameworks and green finance taxonomies, Uganda’s impending transition reflects a wider East African regulatory shift. This places commercial banks as the primary gatekeepers of capital and means that these rules will soon force businesses across every local supply chain to present clear and verified ESG performance to secure financing from the banks.
Ssekisonge concluded by reminding enterprise leaders that sustainability in Uganda must be approached not as a passive regulatory exercise, but as a strategic mechanism to unlock long-term financial, social, and national value.
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