The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) and Makerere University Business School (MUBS) have agreed to deepen their partnership in a renewed push to strengthen Uganda’s national quality culture. Both institutions say Uganda’s export ambitions and industrial growth will continue to lag unless quality and standards become a routine part of education, enterprise development and public behaviour.
Speaking during a follow-up meeting at the MUBS main campus, UNBS Executive Director Eng. James Kasigwa said the collaboration fits squarely within the bureau’s five-year strategic plan, which places strong emphasis on building public appreciation for quality and compliance.
“One of the initiatives over the next five years is to build the national quality culture where the population embraces quality and standards,” Kasigwa said. “UNBS is in the business of growing quality enterprises. We shall ensure that students and all stakeholders appreciate the role of standards in economic transformation at individual, enterprise and national level.”
Kasigwa noted that UNBS is legally required under Section 3 of the UNBS Act to promote education on standardisation, and said the bureau plans to scale up this function through stronger ties with universities and other training institutions.
As part of the plan, UNBS will establish a National Standards and Quality Institute to lead teaching, training and research in standards. The bureau is also preparing to start personnel certification programmes aimed at improving workforce competence and making Uganda more competitive for investment and tourism.
Kasigwa said aligning graduates, enterprises and public institutions with required standards is critical if Uganda is to meet its ten-fold growth target, which hinges on export expansion, import substitution and industrialisation.
“This collaboration will help enterprises create awareness and build competences that will ensure that Ugandan products, including human resource, comply with the required quality and standards at national, regional and global level,” he said.
MUBS Principal, Prof. Moses Muhwezi, said the business school understands that the quality of graduates—and the institutions that train them—directly shapes Uganda’s economic outcomes.
“As a government institution and a key player in the education sector, we are committed to assist government to achieve a ten-fold growth,” he said. “We are collaborating with UNBS and other government entities to ensure that we undertake standards in businesses, labour force, and our processes. We should be academically knowledgeable in the area of standardisation.”
To build internal capacity, Prof. Muhwezi announced that MUBS will sponsor one staff member to pursue a PhD in standards, with the aim of embedding quality principles across academic programmes.
The joint effort comes as Uganda continues to struggle with substandard goods, quality breaches in manufacturing and weak adherence to standards among small and medium enterprises. These problems have long undermined export competitiveness and consumer safety.
UNBS says it hopes that integrating standards education into university programmes will help shift attitudes, reduce compliance gaps and support long-term economic transformation.
For both institutions, the goal is clear: make quality a national habit rather than an afterthought, and align Uganda’s workforce and enterprises with the standards expected in regional and global markets.
