There is something quietly significant about a room full of bankers, developers, and policymakers gathering not in Kampala’s familiar conference halls, but in Gulu – a city that, barely two decades ago, was still counting the cost of one of East Africa’s most brutal insurgencies.
That the Acholi Real Estate and Infrastructure Conference took place at the Acholi Inn Hotel on May 22 was, in itself, a statement of intent.
Convened by property firm Knight Frank Uganda and anchored financially by NCBA Bank Uganda as Exclusive Platinum Financial Partner, the inaugural event brought together over 150 stakeholders to examine Gulu’s growing credentials as a real estate and investment destination.
NCBA injected UGX 40 million into the event – not a trivial commitment, and one that signals where serious money is beginning to look.
Gulu is no longer simply a post-conflict recovery story. With a population exceeding 232,000 and an annual growth rate of 5.28%, it is among Uganda’s fastest-growing cities, strategically positioned as a commercial gateway to both South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The city’s daytime economy – driven by cross-border traders, agro-processors, and transit traffic – is vigorous and restless. What it has lacked, until now, is the organised financial architecture to convert that transient energy into lasting, bankable development.
That gap was precisely what NCBA’s Head of Sustainability and Strategy, Martin Mwanje, addressed in a grounding keynote address.
Rather than cheerleading, Mwanje unpacked the hard realities of financing projects in secondary cities – the discipline required in deal structuring, the importance of clear cash flows, and the necessity of alignment across all stakeholders.
A cross section of participants at the expo in Gulu
His statement that “successful projects are built on credible preparation, realistic assumptions, and strong coordination,” was the message that cut through. It is the kind of clarity that regional developers, many of whom have watched promising projects stall at the financing stage, needed to hear plainly and publicly.
Through its participation, NCBA Bank Uganda positioned itself to lead Finance and Investment Clinics at the event, engaging directly with developers, project sponsors, and investors around its suite of offerings: mortgage financing, construction financing, asset financing, and business banking solutions tailored to the regional market.
The panel discussions reinforced why such engagement matters at this level of specificity. One session examined the journey from project feasibility to financial close, with a recurring finding: bankable projects demand credible preparation and honest assumptions, not optimism alone.
Another panel tackled the legal and institutional challenges around land access, with Gulu City’s own land governance leadership contributing directly.
The message was unambiguous: development cannot progress where land tenure systems are murky and approvals are uncoordinated.
Another panel discussion turned to retail, hospitality, and mixed-use developments, underlining that commercial success in secondary cities requires market-led thinking, not simply replicating Kampala’s template in smaller surroundings.
These conversations sit within a broader national context. Uganda’s decision to designate ten new regional strategic cities – among them Gulu, Arua, Mbale, Hoima, and Mbarara – reflects a deliberate decentralisation agenda.
The Government’s representative, M Joseph Enyimu, was direct about this, framing secondary cities not as afterthoughts but as central pillars of Uganda’s long-term growth strategy.
The challenge is that legal city status has run ahead of physical reality in many of these locations, where drainage, waste management, and road infrastructure remain inadequate.
The private sector must help close that gap, and events like this expo create the conditions for that conversation to begin seriously.
What happened in Gulu last week was modest in scale but meaningful in direction. Capital, expertise, and ambition assembled in the north – and the north, by all accounts, has been waiting for so long.
