On Friday, July 25, marked the second day of the Diaspora Skills Mapping exercise at the Uganda High Commission in Ottawa. This important exercise is designed to help embassy staff enhance their engagement with the diaspora community, ensuring their collective skills and expertise can meaningfully contribute to Uganda’s socio-economic development.

Why this Capacity Building Matters According to the program’s background, the Government of Uganda recognizes the transformative role the diaspora plays beyond remittances—including promoting trade, attracting foreign direct investment, creating entrepreneurship opportunities, and transferring knowledge and skills. However, past efforts have been fragmented, with no single centralized mechanism to coordinate all diaspora engagement initiatives. This training in Ottawa is part of a larger, structured approach to strengthen institutional capacity at Ugandan missions abroad, ensuring effective diaspora governance and enabling more impactful contributions to Uganda’s development. The sessions in Canada are supported by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They equip mission staff with practical knowledge on: ✅ Building sustainable diaspora engagement institutions ✅ Collecting and mapping diaspora skills and expertise ✅ Reducing barriers to diaspora-led investment and innovation ✅ Aligning diaspora contributions with Uganda’s national development goals The workshop also seeks to mobilize and coordinate the diaspora community in Canada, enabling structured contributions in critical areas such as health, youth empowerment, gender, and climate action. Through the IOM 3E Strategy for Diaspora Engagement, Ugandan diplomats and diaspora leaders are exploring best practices from other countries like India and Ethiopia to strengthen Uganda’s own diaspora frameworks. This initiative is part of Uganda’s broader Vision 2040, which aims to diversify diaspora contributions beyond remittances to include skills transfer, innovation, business investment, and technology exchange. The engagement in Ottawa will culminate in an open diaspora dialogue, where Ugandan community members in Canada will provide feedback on key policy areas, especially the formulation of the National Diaspora Policy, ensuring their voices and experiences inform future strategies. This Canada engagement follows a similar initiative in the United Kingdom, highlighting Uganda’s commitment to creating a structured, inclusive, and sustainable diaspora framework for national transformation.