Every night, Nabatezi Gorretti carried the same fear into the darkness.
Inside her home in Kasenge Nakawuka, the mother of one tried to care for her baby beneath the weak flame of a tadooba lamp, a small light source that brought more danger than comfort into the room.
The flame flickered constantly.
Smoke filled the house.
And every evening carried the frightening possibility of fire.
For Gorretti, motherhood became filled with anxiety after sunset. Feeding her child at night required caution with every movement. Soothing the baby meant staying close to smoke and open flame. Even simple caregiving tasks became stressful because darkness and danger surrounded every moment.
Instead of peace, the nights brought fear. Then Solar M7 arrived. And slowly, the atmosphere inside her home began to change.
Today, reliable solar light fills the room safely after sunset. The smoke is gone. The dangerous flame no longer threatens her child. Gorretti now feeds, comforts, and cares for her baby with calmness and confidence instead of fear.
The home feels lighter. Safer. Peaceful again.
“For a long time, nights were stressful because I feared the tadooba and the danger it brought,” Gorretti shared during her interview. “Now I care for my baby comfortably and safely, and the home feels calm again.”
According to Doreen Nanfuka, many mothers across underserved communities silently endure unsafe nighttime conditions while trying to care for young children.
“When reliable light enters a home with a baby, you immediately see emotional relief,” Doreen explained. “Mothers feel safer, children sleep more peacefully, and the household becomes calmer overall.”
Innocent Kawooya says stories like Gorretti’s reveal how energy access directly affects caregiving, safety, and emotional wellbeing inside families.
“Reliable light helps parents nurture children in safer and healthier environments,” he noted. “No mother should have to raise her child surrounded by fear of smoke, fire, or darkness.”
Today, nights inside Gorretti’s home no longer feel dangerous.
Her baby rests peacefully.
The room glows safely.
And in a house where darkness once threatened her confidence as a mother, Solar M7 is now helping restore something deeply important.
Peace. Safety. And the comfort every parent deserves while caring for a child.
Watch the full story of Nabatezi Gorretti from Kasenge Nakawuka, Uganda across our platforms:
MacKenzie Scott did not become globally influential simply because of wealth. She became influential because she changed the direction of opportunity. Her philanthropy challenged traditional systems of gatekeeping and proved that empowering institutions serving communities can shift entire generations. Across Africa, another transformation has quietly been unfolding for nearly two decades. Not from Silicon Valley boardrooms. Not from global investment banks. But from border markets, trading centers, crowded taxi parks, university halls, informal settlements, mobile phones, and women who refused to remain excluded from the future.
For years, Africa’s digital economy was discussed mainly through statistics. Millions remained financially excluded. Millions lacked access to banking infrastructure. Millions of women worked tirelessly within informal economies yet remained invisible to formal financial systems. But behind every statistic was a real woman, a mother struggling to save safely, a cross-border trader carrying cash through unsafe routes, a young entrepreneur without access to digital tools, a market vendor excluded from credit systems, a healthcare worker unable to scale her services, or a girl with talent but without access to opportunity. The true story of Africa’s digital revolution has never simply been about technology. It has always been about inclusion. And inclusion only becomes meaningful when women are fully part of the transformation.
For nearly two decades, HiPipo and its broader ecosystem of initiatives consistently pushed one powerful philosophy: Africa cannot achieve meaningful digital transformation while women remain digitally excluded. That vision influenced financial literacy campaigns, healthcare innovation systems, cross-border empowerment programs, entrepreneurship initiatives, interoperability advocacy, youth innovation platforms, and regional inclusion efforts that today impact millions across Africa. This has never simply been a story about “women empowerment” as a slogan. It has been about redesigning economic participation itself.
Long before “fintech” became one of Africa’s most celebrated sectors, women already dominated informal trade networks across the continent. Women sustained households, powered agricultural economies, operated small businesses, managed savings circles, and facilitated community survival systems. Yet most formal financial systems were never built with them in mind. Traditional banking structures required formal employment, paperwork, physical branches, minimum balances, and literacy structures that many underserved communities could not easily access. As a result, millions of economically active women remained financially invisible. This invisibility became one of Africa’s greatest development barriers because communities cannot truly prosper when the people carrying economies are excluded from financial systems.
The mobile phone changed everything. Suddenly, financial participation no longer depended entirely on physical bank buildings. A woman in a rural village could receive money instantly, save digitally, transact remotely, access information, participate in commerce, and begin connecting to broader economic systems. But technology alone was never enough. Access without education creates vulnerability. Connectivity without literacy creates exploitation. Innovation without inclusion creates inequality. This is why some of the most important work over the last twenty years was not merely building platforms — it was building understanding.
One of the most transformative philosophies that emerged during this period carried a remarkably simple message: Include Everyone. Not include some. Not include urban elites. Not include only smartphone users. Everyone. Women traders. Rural communities. Informal workers. Youth. Market vendors. Cross-border traders. Microbusiness owners. Communities traditionally ignored by formal innovation systems. This philosophy evolved into regional empowerment initiatives spanning financial literacy, interoperability advocacy, cross-border inclusion, digital safety education, and entrepreneurship ecosystems across COMESA markets and beyond.
The impact became measurable. Women who once feared digital financial systems began using interoperable payment platforms. Informal traders began understanding transaction histories and digital records. Communities learned the importance of separating business finances from household finances. Women entrepreneurs became more confident in digital commerce and savings behavior. In Zambia and Malawi, women cross-border traders operating within busy informal trade corridors participated in training programs focused on digital financial literacy, safety, interoperability, fraud prevention, budgeting, and entrepreneurship. Many had never before participated in structured digital finance education. The results were transformative. Women reported improved confidence in budgeting, stronger financial discipline, safer transaction practices, and measurable growth within their businesses. More importantly, many began seeing themselves not merely as users of digital systems, but as participants in shaping Africa’s future economy.
Perhaps one of the most overlooked forms of infrastructure in Africa is confidence itself. Confidence determines whether people adopt opportunity. Many women across Africa were historically taught to survive economically but not necessarily to scale economically. Digital literacy changes that. Financial literacy changes that. Entrepreneurship training changes that. Exposure changes that. When women gain access to financial understanding, digital confidence, leadership opportunities, networks, and market visibility, they transition from participation into ownership. That shift changes families, communities, and entire economies.
One of the strongest indicators of change emerged through women-focused innovation initiatives and entrepreneurship platforms. Increasingly, women were not positioned only as beneficiaries of systems but as creators of systems. Women-led teams began developing healthcare technologies, financial solutions, savings systems, commerce tools, and digital community platforms. This distinction matters profoundly because Africa’s future cannot simply be designed for women, it must increasingly be designed by women. The continent’s future digital economy requires female founders, engineers, product designers, innovators, policymakers, strategists, regulators, and ecosystem builders. That is how inclusion becomes permanent rather than symbolic.
Healthcare also became one of the most important pillars within this broader empowerment conversation. Women empowerment cannot be separated from healthcare access because health access itself is economic access. A woman struggling to access healthcare often loses time, mobility, income, productivity, stability, and economic resilience. This is one of the reasons why My Doctor emerged as far more than simply a healthcare platform. My Doctor became part of a broader inclusion vision focused on ensuring that healthcare itself becomes digitally accessible, affordable, scalable, and community-centered.
For years, millions of Africans — especially women — faced enormous barriers to healthcare access. Transport costs, overcrowded facilities, distance, delayed consultations, lost work hours, childcare responsibilities, and affordability challenges made healthcare difficult to access consistently. Through My Doctor, the vision was to redesign healthcare around accessibility and convenience. Telemedicine systems incorporating voice calls, video consultations, WhatsApp communication, SMS engagement, and community outreach helped create new pathways for women and underserved populations to access care without unnecessary barriers. In many communities, convenience is not a luxury — it is empowerment itself.
The My Doctor ecosystem consistently recognized that women often carry multiple simultaneous responsibilities: caregiving, entrepreneurship, parenting, household management, and income generation. When healthcare systems fail women, entire communities suffer economically and socially. By reducing transport burdens, minimizing lost productivity hours, extending healthcare access into underserved areas, and integrating digital health solutions into everyday life, My Doctor contributed to restoring one of the most important forms of economic power: time. When women regain time, they regain productivity. When they regain productivity, they regain economic possibility.
The My Doctor ecosystem also aligned strongly with youth empowerment and healthcare entrepreneurship. Through HiPipo University and healthcare entrepreneurship initiatives, young healthcare professionals — including women — were encouraged to think beyond traditional employment models and begin viewing healthcare itself as an innovation ecosystem. Doctors, nurses, clinicians, allied health professionals, and entrepreneurs were encouraged to embrace digital systems, scalable care models, telemedicine, remote consultations, health technology innovation, and community-centered healthcare delivery. This approach helped create a new generation of healthcare thinkers increasingly prepared for Africa’s evolving digital future.
Financial literacy also emerged as one of the most underestimated liberation tools across the empowerment movement. Not because saving money is new, but because understanding systems creates freedom. Many hardworking women lacked structured financial frameworks despite carrying significant economic responsibility within their households and businesses. Financial literacy initiatives focused on budgeting, reinvestment, separating personal and business finances, digital safety, long-term planning, responsible borrowing, and growth-oriented thinking helped many women transition from survival-based economic activity into scalable economic behavior.
Financial literacy is ultimately about power. Financially informed women negotiate differently, invest differently, lead differently, raise children differently, and participate differently in society. When multiplied across millions of households, the impact becomes national in scale. Stronger women create stronger communities. Stronger communities create more resilient economies.
Over the last two decades, the internet also helped create a new kind of African woman — digitally connected, globally aware, entrepreneurial, ambitious, creative, and increasingly independent. Social media, mobile money, creator economies, digital commerce, online education, and mobile entrepreneurship opened opportunities previous generations could barely imagine. Today, a young African woman can run a business from her phone, learn online, access international audiences, receive payments digitally, build a brand, influence conversations, and participate within the global economy from almost anywhere.
Yet significant challenges remain. Smartphone affordability gaps persist. Internet access costs remain high in many areas. Cybersecurity threats disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. Women founders still face major investment barriers. Digital safety concerns remain real. Representation gaps continue across leadership and funding ecosystems. This means the next chapter of empowerment must move beyond access alone toward ownership, leadership, and institutional influence.
The global economy increasingly recognizes something Africa has always known: women are not a “special interest group.” They are economic engines. When women gain access to healthcare, finance, education, technology, leadership opportunities, digital systems, and entrepreneurship ecosystems, entire economies expand. Consumer spending improves. Child welfare improves. Educational outcomes improve. Innovation accelerates. Poverty reduces. Community resilience strengthens. Empowering women is not charity. It is economic strategy.
Africa’s next great economic opportunity may therefore lie in the millions of women who remain partially excluded from full participation in the digital economy. The countries, institutions, and ecosystems that succeed over the coming decades will be those that reduce exclusion, democratize access, invest in women-led innovation, expand interoperability, localize technology, lower participation barriers, and build systems intentionally designed around inclusion.
The future will not simply be defined by who builds apps or launches platforms. It will be defined by who builds inclusive systems. Real transformation happens when a rural mother accesses healthcare through her phone, when a trader safely scales her business digitally, when a young female founder receives investment, when financial literacy becomes mainstream, and when underserved communities become economically visible.
Some revolutions do not arrive loudly. Some happen quietly through community clinics, financial literacy workshops, digital platforms, mobile phones, mentorship programs, cross-border empowerment initiatives, and ecosystems that consistently insisted on one message: Include Everyone.
For nearly twenty years, that work has continued through partnerships, policy engagement, healthcare innovation, entrepreneurship ecosystems, digital literacy movements, regional inclusion programs, interoperability advocacy, and community-centered development initiatives across Africa. Not simply to empower women as a slogan, but to help redesign Africa’s future around inclusion itself.
And perhaps history will eventually recognize something profound: the women once excluded from Africa’s digital economy may ultimately become the very people who transform it most.
When news emerged that South African-born biotech entrepreneur and physician Patrick Soon-Shiong had become the richest person in Los Angeles with an estimated net worth of $8.4 billion, the world saw another billionaire headline. But beneath the wealth figure lies a much deeper lesson for Africa and for every young innovator trying to build something meaningful on the continent.
Patrick Soon-Shiong’s story is not simply about money. It is about the extraordinary power of innovation when it is focused on solving problems that affect millions of people. Born in South Africa, he rose from the medical and scientific world to become one of the most influential healthcare innovators globally. His cancer drug innovations transformed lives, reshaped healthcare possibilities, and ultimately generated billions of dollars in value. His journey proves that global wealth can emerge from African roots when vision, science, persistence, and opportunity collide.
Africa today stands at a similar turning point.
The continent is filled with enormous challenges — financial exclusion, limited healthcare access, energy poverty, unemployment, low access to quality education, digital inequality, and barriers for women and youth. But history repeatedly shows that the world’s greatest fortunes are often created by solving humanity’s largest problems. Google solved access to information. Amazon transformed commerce. Visa revolutionized payments. M-Pesa changed how millions move money. Patrick Soon-Shiong transformed healthcare innovation. In every generation, wealth follows impact.
This is why Africa’s future billionaires may not emerge from traditional industries alone. They will likely emerge from technology, healthcare, financial inclusion, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, agriculture innovation, education platforms, and digital ecosystems that improve life for millions of people.
For over two decades, HiPipo has operated with this exact understanding. Long before “digital transformation” became a global buzzword, HiPipo was already investing in people, ideas, innovation ecosystems, digital literacy, financial inclusion, and youth empowerment across Africa. Through initiatives such as Include Everyone, 40 Days 40 FinTechs, Digital Impact Awards Africa, HiPipo University, financial literacy programs, women-led innovation programs, and regional digital transformation platforms, millions of young people have been exposed to opportunities that previously felt impossible.
These efforts are bigger than events or campaigns.
They are about creating an ecosystem where innovation can grow.
The reality is that billionaires are rarely created in isolation. They emerge from environments that encourage experimentation, reward creativity, support entrepreneurship, and connect innovators to knowledge, mentorship, and capital. Africa does not lack intelligent young people. Africa does not lack ambitious women. Africa does not lack ideas. What the continent has historically lacked is enough sustained investment into innovation ecosystems that can turn local ideas into scalable global solutions.
This is why the role of visionary investors and supporters matters so deeply.
One of the most important examples globally is Bill Gates. While many billionaires focus primarily on preserving wealth, Bill Gates became globally respected for continuously investing in innovation, healthcare, education, science, agriculture, financial inclusion, and global development. Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, billions of dollars have been directed toward solving some of humanity’s most urgent problems, especially in Africa.
What makes Bill Gates particularly important in the African innovation story is not simply the amount of money invested. It is the philosophy behind the investment. He consistently demonstrates that supporting innovators, researchers, entrepreneurs, and scalable systems can transform entire societies. From digital financial services to healthcare systems, agricultural innovation, vaccine development, and digital infrastructure, his support has repeatedly accelerated solutions that governments and markets alone struggled to scale.
That same philosophy is increasingly visible across Africa’s emerging innovation ecosystem.
Organizations like HiPipo have spent years building platforms that expose young people and women to digital opportunities, entrepreneurship, financial systems, healthcare innovation, and technology-driven growth. The impact of such ecosystems may not immediately appear on billionaire rankings, but over time they shape the individuals who eventually build transformative companies.
The next African billionaire may currently be a student attending a digital training program. She may be a young woman learning financial literacy in a border community. He may be a startup founder struggling with internet access while building an idea capable of serving millions. They may not yet have capital, but they possess something equally important — proximity to possibility.
That is what innovation ecosystems create.
Patrick Soon-Shiong’s story reminds Africa that world-changing innovation can emerge from this continent. Bill Gates’ lifelong investment philosophy reminds the world that supporting innovation ecosystems can change humanity itself. And the continued work of institutions like HiPipo demonstrates that empowering youth, women, entrepreneurs, and innovators is not charity — it is long-term economic transformation.
Africa’s future billionaires will likely not be defined only by personal wealth. They will be defined by how many lives they improve, how many systems they transform, and how many opportunities they create for others.
The next $8.4 billion African success story may already be quietly growing somewhere in Kampala, Kigali, Lusaka, Nairobi, Lagos, or Johannesburg.
The question is whether Africa will continue investing enough in innovation, education, inclusion, and ecosystems to help that future rise.
Somali referee Omar Artan was denied entry to the United States because of his “association with suspected members of terror organisations,” a US official has claimed, ending the 34-year-old’s dream of becoming the first Somali to officiate at a World Cup finals.
Artan, named Africa’s Referee of the Year in 2025, was set to be one of 52 referees selected for the 2026 World Cup. But his journey came to an abrupt halt on Monday when he was detained at Miami International Airport, subjected to an 11-hour immigration interview, and put on a flight to Istanbul.
Despite holding a diplomatic passport and a single-entry US visa, Artan was refused admission. Somalia is among twelve countries on a travel ban list introduced by President Donald Trump.
A Trump administration source provided the official justification for the ban.
“This individual was seeking admission to the United States,” the source said. “Upon further inspection by CBP [Custom and Border Protection], derogatory information, including association with suspected members of terror organisations, was discovered making the traveller ineligible for admission to the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).”
The source added: “President Trump’s administration will not allow any security threat to enter our country – full stop.”
Artan told the New York Times that during his questioning, border officials asked him about his links to Somali militant group Al Shabab. He said he told them he knew nothing about the group.
It was not possible for Artan to stay outside the United States and referee matches played in Canada or Mexico, as all on-pitch officials were based in Florida for training, preparation, and security. His World Cup dream, he later said, had “crashed down.”
Upon landing at Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu on Wednesday, Artan received a hero’s welcome. He was greeted by government officials, representatives of the Somali Football Federation, fellow referees, and local residents.
He later met President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud at the Presidential Palace and is expected to attend a public event at Mogadishu Stadium.
In a brief statement to the media at the airport, Artan spoke of his determination to officiate at the 2030 World Cup but did not take questions from journalists.
“Everything is pre-destined,” he said.” FIFA supported me well and were in touch with me until I reached Mogadishu. I promise you that I’ll be officiating at the next World Cup.”
Artan used his return to issue a defiant message to his country’s young people, urging them not to lose hope in the face of his treatment.
“Let’s all defend Somalia’s honour,” he said. “We all belong to Somalia, whether it’s bad or good. That flag is ours, and so is the passport – let’s defend it.”
He added: “The youth shouldn’t be demoralised about their country. Despite this happening to me, I’ll still stand for my nation. I want to continue my journey from here and urge the youth to do the same.”
President Trump placed a full entry ban under any visa category for twelve countries, including Somalia, in June 2025. Two days before the World Cup draw in December 2025, Trump drew widespread attention for comments made about Somalia in the lead-up to a planned immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota, which has a large Somali community.
“With Somalia, which is barely a country, you know, they have no anything,” Trump said at the time. “They just run around killing each other. There’s no structure.”
He added that Somali immigrants should “go back to where they came from” and that the US would “go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage to our country.”
Artan’s exclusion raises questions about the intersection of sports and geopolitics. FIFA, world football’s governing body, has not issued a detailed statement on the matter, though Artan acknowledged that the organisation supported him and remained in contact until he reached Mogadishu.
For Somalia, the incident has become a matter of national pride. A referee who was denied entry to the United States has been embraced at home as a symbol of resilience. For the United States, the administration has made clear that security concerns override any sporting considerations.
Artan, meanwhile, has already set his sights on 2030. Whether he will be allowed to pursue that dream remains uncertain.
For decades, millions of African women lived outside the formal financial system.
Not because they lacked economic activity. Not because they lacked discipline or ambition.
But because access itself was designed around systems many women could not easily reach.
Traditional banking often depended on:
physical branches,
formal employment,
minimum balances,
paperwork,
long travel distances,
and documentation many low-income women did not possess.
Across rural Africa, especially, financial exclusion became deeply connected to geography, poverty, infrastructure gaps, and social inequality. Women traded daily, ran households, operated microbusinesses, supported families, and participated heavily in informal economies, yet remained largely invisible to formal finance.
Then mobile money arrived. And quietly, one of the most important financial inclusion shifts in modern African history began unfolding.
Over the last decade, women’s account ownership across sub-Saharan Africa has risen dramatically, driven heavily by mobile money adoption and expanding digital financial access. According to the World Bank’s Global Findex database, women’s account ownership in the region grew from roughly 23% in 2011 to approximately 49% by 2021.
The numbers tell a powerful story. But the human transformation behind them is even bigger.
For millions of women, the mobile phone quietly became the first real gateway into formal financial participation.
A market vendor could suddenly receive payments digitally instead of relying entirely on cash. A mother could save privately on her phone without needing to travel to a bank branch. A small trader could separate household money from business income more effectively. A rural entrepreneur could transact across distances that traditional financial infrastructure had failed to serve affordably.
The significance went far beyond convenience. Financial access changes power.
A woman with direct control over a digital account often gains greater independence over:
savings,
emergency spending,
school fees,
healthcare decisions,
and small-business management.
This is one reason women’s financial inclusion increasingly sits at the centre of broader development conversations globally. When women gain reliable financial tools, the impact often extends beyond the individual account holder into entire households and communities.
Africa’s mobile-first financial ecosystem accelerated this transformation faster than many expected. Platforms such as M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Airtel Money, and rapidly expanding FinTech ecosystems succeeded because they adapted to realities traditional banking often struggled with. Mobile money worked for:
small-value transactions,
informal income flows,
rural accessibility,
flexible usage patterns,
and low-cost participation.
This mattered enormously for women operating within informal and microeconomic environments. Many could join digital finance ecosystems without needing the formal structures traditional banking systems historically demanded.
The phone became the bank branch. And the agent network became the infrastructure layer that made inclusion physically possible.
But the transformation also revealed something deeper about Africa’s digital economy:
Inclusion scales faster when infrastructure adapts to people rather than forcing people to adapt to infrastructure.
That lesson now shapes much of the continent’s wider digital transformation agenda. Yet despite extraordinary progress, major gender gaps remain. Millions of African women still face barriers linked to:
smartphone affordability,
internet access,
digital literacy,
identification requirements,
and social restrictions around technology ownership or usage.
In some communities, women remain less likely than men to own smartphones independently. Even where mobile money access exists, deeper gaps often remain around:
digital savings,
insurance,
investment products,
formal credit access,
and advanced digital financial services.
Access alone is not enough. Usage matters.
An account that exists but is rarely used does not fully translate into empowerment. This is why the next phase of inclusion increasingly focuses on active financial participation rather than simple account ownership.
Digital literacy has therefore become increasingly important. Many first-generation digital finance users still require support understanding:
fraud protection,
PIN security,
digital savings,
responsible borrowing,
mobile lending risks,
and transaction verification.
Women are often disproportionately exposed to scams or financial misinformation because digital confidence gaps remain significant in many markets.
This means the future of inclusion depends not only on infrastructure, but also on education and trust.
At the same time, women are increasingly shaping the FinTech ecosystem itself. Across Africa, more women are emerging as:
FinTech founders,
ecosystem leaders,
mobile money agents,
digital entrepreneurs,
and financial inclusion advocates.
That shift matters because inclusive systems are usually designed more effectively when women participate directly in building them.
The future of digital finance cannot be fully inclusive if women remain underrepresented inside the institutions shaping that future.
There is also a major economic story unfolding beneath the surface.
Women’s financial inclusion may represent one of Africa’s largest untapped growth opportunities. As millions of women gain transaction histories, digital identities, payment access, and financial visibility, they become easier for lenders, insurers, marketplaces, and digital commerce platforms to serve formally.
Inclusion, therefore, expands not only participation, but economic possibility.
A woman operating informally today may eventually:
access digital credit,
scale a microbusiness,
transact regionally,
build savings,
access insurance,
or participate in digital commerce ecosystems previously beyond reach.
This is where financial inclusion evolves from a social conversation into a productivity conversation.
Governments, development institutions, FinTechs, and telecom operators increasingly recognise this reality. Across Africa, digital inclusion programs now increasingly combine:
mobile onboarding,
affordable device access,
digital literacy,
interoperable payments,
agent-network expansion,
and women-focused financial ecosystems.
The objective is no longer simply to count accounts. It is to create meaningful economic participation.
This is where Digital Public Infrastructure becomes especially important. Strong identity systems, interoperable payment rails, affordable connectivity, and trusted digital ecosystems all help lower barriers for women entering formal digital economies.
Without those rails, inclusion slows. Without trust, adoption weakens. Without affordability, participation narrows.
For HiPipo Money, the rise of women’s financial inclusion represents one of the most important economic transformations happening quietly across Africa today.
The continent’s mobile money revolution did more than digitise payments.
It changed who gets to participate in the economy.
This aligns strongly with broader conversations around:
financial inclusion,
women’s empowerment,
digital literacy,
FinTech innovation,
interoperable payments,
and inclusive growth championed through ecosystems such as Women in FinTech, Include Everyone, the Digital Impact Awards Africa (DIAA), and wider digital transformation movements across the continent.
Because ultimately, financial inclusion is not just about technology.
It is about visibility.
A woman saving securely for the first time. A mother receiving payments directly. A trader growing a business digitally. A rural entrepreneur joining formal commerce. A young woman gaining financial independence through a phone in her hand.
Most people will remember mobile money as a FinTech success story.
But for millions of African women, it became something much bigger.
The Ministry of Education and Sports is planning to merge the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) and the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) into a single institution, according to officials familiar with the proposal.
The merger is among the key reforms contained in the forthcoming Curriculum, Assessment and Admissions Bill, one of several education sector laws recently highlighted by President Yoweri Museveni as being in the government’s legislative pipeline.
Brighton Barugahare, Commissioner in charge of policy analysis and research at the Ministry of Education, said the merger is part of wider reforms aimed at improving efficiency and reducing costs in government entities. He added that the move is intended to eliminate duplication of functions and address fragmented decision-making within the education sector.
The two institutions already perform complementary roles. NCDC is responsible for curriculum design, including teaching, learning, and assessment frameworks, while UNEB mainly conducts end-of-cycle national examinations such as the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE), Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE), and Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE).
Under the proposed arrangement, neither function would be abolished. Instead, they would be placed under a single institution with separate directorates responsible for the different mandates.
“These are just complementary functions, and bringing them under one institution will improve coordination and reduce fragmentation in planning and decision-making,” Barugahare said.
He noted that the two agencies already have overlapping governance structures, including representation from the Ministry of Education and cross-membership on their respective boards.
Barugahare argued that internationally, curriculum development and assessment are often managed under the same institution. He added that Uganda’s Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) has further strengthened the case for integration because assessment is now embedded throughout the teaching and learning process rather than being confined to final examinations.
“Assessment is no longer only about what happens at the end of the cycle. Schools conduct continuous assessment on a daily basis, and these processes require coherent guidance linked directly to curriculum development,” he explained.
The proposal echoes recommendations made by the Amanya Mushega-led Education Policy Review Commission. That commission recommended the creation of a National Curriculum and Assessment Authority by merging curriculum and assessment bodies operating at both basic and advanced education levels.
“The Commission notes that R5 on the merging of all curriculum and assessment bodies applies,” the commission’s report reads. “NCDC, UNEB, and other assessment bodies under the Basic and Advanced levels should be merged under one body with respective directorates to develop curriculum and assessment frameworks for both the academic and skills tracks.”
Although the commission’s report is yet to be adopted through a government white paper, discussions on merging the two institutions had already begun before the report was released.
The name and structure of the proposed institution have not yet been made public. However, sources indicate that both UNEB and NCDC have previously expressed reservations about the merger, citing concerns over institutional autonomy and mandate preservation.
Neither institution has publicly commented on the latest developments.
The government has already adopted a similar approach in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector, where curriculum development, assessment, and certification functions were consolidated under the Uganda Vocational and Technical Assessment Board (UVTAB) and the Uganda Health Professions Assessment Board (UHPAB).
Those two boards develop curricula in consultation with relevant stakeholders while also conducting assessments and overseeing certification.
NCDC was established in 1973 to centralize and localize the curriculum, ensuring that learning content reflects national priorities and the country’s social and economic needs.
UNEB was created in 1983 following the collapse of the East African Examinations Council, taking over responsibility for administering national examinations.
For more than four decades, the two institutions have operated separately. The proposed merger would represent one of the most significant structural changes to Uganda’s education governance in a generation.
The Curriculum, Assessment and Admissions Bill, which contains the merger proposal, is expected to be tabled before Parliament as part of the government’s legislative agenda. Once the bill is introduced, lawmakers will have an opportunity to scrutinise the proposed reforms, hear stakeholder concerns, and make amendments before any merger can take effect.
For now, the Ministry of Education appears committed to the integration, arguing that it will improve efficiency, reduce costs, and better align curriculum and assessment under the Competency-Based Curriculum. But the reservations reportedly expressed by UNEB and NCDC suggest that the proposal may face resistance before it becomes law.
