Uganda’s industrialisation is a welcome development. Industrial parks, manufacturing plants and agro-processing industries are creating employment, promoting value addition, increasing household incomes and strengthening the national economy. But as we celebrate this progress, we must ask an important question: Are our social services growing as fast as our factories?
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) Labour Market Survey 2025, released in 2026, 29,705 people were employed in Uganda’s industrial and agricultural parks. Namanve Industrial and Business Park alone accounted for 15,099 workers, while Mbale Industrial and Business Park had 3,813. The survey also recorded 13,776 casual workers, highlighting the significant number of workers who may face economic insecurity.
Industrialisation attracts people from different parts of the country. Unfortunately, employment opportunities can grow faster than affordable housing, healthcare, sanitation and transport. Many low-income workers may consequently end up in overcrowded and poorly serviced accommodation.
This is not merely an assumption. A February 2026 study of Namanve Industrial Park and surrounding communities, conducted by Atuhaire Justus, Kato Emmanuel, Ndeezi Grace, Prichard Denzel Kavuma and Kimwise Alone, identified unmet needs in primary healthcare, occupational safety, sexual and reproductive health, water and sanitation, environmental health and psychosocial support.
I commend these researchers for bringing the human dimension of industrialisation to the centre of public debate. Their work deserves the attention of government, employers and industrial-park developers. However, because the study was published as a preprint, its findings should be treated as emerging evidence rather than a definitive national assessment.
HIV: LET US HAVE THE RIGHT CONVERSATION
HIV must also be part of this discussion, particularly given the large number of young people entering industrial employment.
UNAIDS estimated approximately 38,000 new HIV infections in Uganda in 2023, including about 15,000 among people aged 15–24.
However, we must correct a dangerous misconception: sharing a room does not transmit HIV. HIV is not spread by living together, sharing food or ordinary social contact.
The concern is that poverty, unstable employment, poor housing, limited access to prevention services and economic vulnerability may create circumstances in which some people face greater HIV risk.
We must therefore avoid blaming or stigmatising young women living in crowded accommodation. The solution is HIV education, testing, prevention, treatment, reproductive-health services, decent housing and economic empowerment.
INDUSTRIALISATION MUST HAVE A HUMAN FACE
Government and industrial developers should ensure that major industrial zones are accompanied by:
– Affordable and decent worker accommodation;
– Accessible health facilities;
– HIV prevention and treatment services;
– Adequate water and sanitation;
– Strong occupational safety measures;
– Safe transport and community security; and
– Mental-health and psychosocial support.
Uganda needs factories. Uganda needs jobs. Uganda needs investment.
But we also need healthy workers and healthy communities.
The success of industrialisation should therefore not be measured only by factories built, production increased or jobs created. It must also be measured by whether the people powering that growth can work safely, live decently and access healthcare with dignity.
Let us build factories—but let us also build healthy communities around them.
That is the industrialisation Uganda deserves.
The author is Jerry Kitsewa Otieno, a
law and policy analyst!
