Odrek Rwabwogo

The District Chairperson for Kiruhura, Mr Mukago Rutetebya, his council speaker, along with the NRM chairman, Mr Kamiisi, came to see us at PACIED headquarters this week.

They would like a session on exports and new income sessions for the district. Kiruhura, which has relied on milk, beef and bananas since 1989, has taken on coffee growing at a very impressive scale.

We look forward to a training session on markets, enterprise, and finance, and to retooling Movement leaders to face the future with knowledge and wisdom.

Ethiopian coffee culture highlights the potential for diverse revenue streams from a single product. The Jebena, a traditional black clay pot, preserves the coffee aroma. At each coffee ceremony, I always ask, “Buna Tetu?” meaning “You want some coffee?” in Amharic.

📌Addis Ababa seems to change daily with fresh layers of transportation, energy, and other forms of infrastructure, and it reminded me of something important.

Nations do not become competitive by accident. They design systems and disrupt their culture positively to get to their destination, prosperity, strength, and a place in the world.

We visited the Ethiopian Artificial Intelligence Institute under the leadership of Dr. Taye Girma, and the Federal Police Command Centre, where the Commissioner General, Mr. Demelash Gebremichael, and his team, took us through their integrated security architecture. We also observed operations at a Smart Policing Station functioning at street level.

What stood out was not the sophistication of machines. It was the discipline of integration and the commitment to compete with the best in the world of robotics, engineering, agricultural value addition, and machine learning.

Artificial Intelligence is not treated as a fashion. It is embedded in institutions.

Security is not reactive. It is data-driven.

Citizen reports generate digital footprints. Criminal and civil Cases are tracked. Delays are visible. Accountability is structured into the architecture itself, and there are consequences for failure.

Why does this matter for exports?

Export growth is not only about producing more coffee, beef, or manufactured goods. It is about reducing friction in the system. It is about credibility. It is about trust. These issues are resolved partly by the discipline of a country and the collection and effective use of data to plan better every day.

A buyer in Europe or Asia does not see our speeches. They see our reliability.

If certification takes too long, if logistics are unpredictable, if systems are fragmented, we lose competitiveness.

The lesson from Addis Ababa is clear: policy must move from paper to platforms, and our data must not sit in siloes but be integrated to help exporters.

If we are serious about growing Uganda’s exports, we must digitise compliance, integrate data across agencies, shorten approval cycles, and build transparent systems that inspire confidence.

Technology is not the goal. Discipline is.

Exports are grown in systems, not slogans.

We must build ours.

Four Years of PACEID and Building Uganda's Export Potential, one firm at a time.

QA: Four Years at PACEID: Odrek Rwabwogo on Building Uganda’s Export Potential One Firm at a Time — and the Non-Negotiables the Country Must Prioritise – CEO East Africa Four years into his tenure at PACEID, Odrek Rwabwogo discusses Uganda’s export surge from US$4.28 billion to US$13.43 billion, the gold boom, SME export financing, and the structural reforms needed for long-term competitiveness.