What is the CICS?

The Competitiveness and Investment Climate (CICS) is Uganda’s Public-Private Partnership (UP3) strategy for achieving Pillar 2 of the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP): Enhancing Production, Competitiveness and Incomes. The CICS has recently been launched as a result of the revision of the Medium Term Competitiveness Strategy (MTCS) formulated in 2000.

The CICS  will contribute to Uganda’s Poverty Eradication Action Plan, (PEAP) by:

• Addressing factors affecting the competitiveness of the country’s key productive sectors;
• Proposing means to remove or mitigate, the domestic business environment and investment climate factors which currently constrain economic growth and competitiveness. 
• Addressing factors that impede Uganda’s capacity to compete in International and Regional markets and to manage it’s international trading relationships.

What are  the priority actions sent out by the CICS?

The CICS has a number of attributes:

i) It provides useful information on Uganda’s Competitiveness rating in relation to accessing markets and attracting investments.

ii) It highlights Uganda’s productive sectors, given their importance in being the source of exports, jobs and income generation.

iii)It provides a framework for harmonizing the objectives of other programmes such as the PMA, Rural Development Strategy (RDS), the Agricultural Zoning Programme and the Prosperity for all (PFA) Programme.

iv) It recognizes the pivotal role of the private sector in driving the competitiveness agenda and provides a framework for public private sector partnerships, through “clusters” in exploiting the potential of the productive sectors.

What does UP 3 stand for?

The new identity for the MTCS is UP3 which stands for Uganda’s Public - Private  Partnership for Competitiveness.  This dynamic partnership involves a strong public private sector dialogue targeting policy and legal reforms, better budgeting for the private sector and better implementation of public programmes.

The UP3 partners are the:

• Private sector enterprises and associations

• Government ministries and institutions and

• Development Partners (donors).