Uganda ranks fourth among 29 African countries in Absa’s 2026 financial markets index, but its score has barely moved in five years while most of the field improved.

The Absa Africa Financial Markets Index, now in its tenth edition and compiled by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) with Absa, the lender, gave Uganda 68 out of 100, a point lower than in 2022. Of the 26 countries scored in both years, Uganda is the only one to have lost ground. The median country gained three points.

Each score is the average of six pillar scores. The 2026 edition rebased them to fixed reference bounds and recalculated earlier years, so every comparison here uses the report’s restated series. The restated series begins in 2022; earlier editions scored each country against that year’s best and worst performers, so their scores are not comparable.

On that basis Uganda was third from 2022 to 2024 and has been fourth since. As first published, 2025 gave Uganda third place on 66. Restated, it is fourth on 67.

Namibia, which trailed Uganda by four points in 2022, has been ahead since 2025 and now holds third place on 71. Kenya has climbed from seventh to fifth in a year, and Ghana from tenth to sixth. The report cites Kenya’s record bond-trading volumes and Ghana’s gains in equities and company listings. Uganda’s lead over Ghana has narrowed from 14 points in 2022 to four.

Uganda leads the macroeconomic pillar with 96, ranking first on all four of its indicators, and is second on access to foreign exchange with 81, up from fifth a year earlier. Michael Atingi-Ego, governor of the Bank of Uganda, said in the report that the result “reflects a long-standing commitment to a market-based, liberalised FX regime, supported by prudent macroeconomic management and continuous financial market development”.

Reserves have grown, according to Bank of Uganda data, from $4.1bn in June 2022 to $6.7bn (Shs24.8tn) in June 2026, a rise of 62.4 per cent. The governor also pointed to the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, which the IMF dates to April 2025.

Reserve adequacy, at 37, is still the weakest indicator in the pillar. The IMF’s latest country report puts import cover at 2.7 months; the central bank, which excludes imports for oil projects, puts it at 3.7.

Market depth, which asks whether a domestic capital market is, in the report’s words, “large, active and varied”, fell five points in 2026 to 47, joint tenth, in a year when 19 countries recorded higher scores and the largest gains came in size and liquidity, Uganda’s two weakest indicators. Uganda scores 100 on the primary dealer system, 40 on product diversity and on depth, 29 on size and 28 on liquidity. The report does not give the change by indicator or say why.

Pension fund development, at 28, is thirteenth. The score is about ten points below the restated 2025 figure, though two above the 26 published a year ago. The report says scores fell by 11 points in Uganda, six in Cameroon and five in Rwanda as pension assets declined relative to domestically listed securities, and that missing data on asset allocation make the causes hard to identify.

On legal standards Uganda has scored 69 for three years, after 86 in 2023. The report scores the country “no” on close-out netting, which lets counterparties to a derivatives contract offset what they owe each other if one defaults. It changed the mark from “yes” this year on the latest data from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. The figures alone do not show whether the 2024 fall reflects a change in law or in method.

The three highest pillars measure policy and disclosure. The two lowest measure the size and liquidity of the market and the pension assets that could feed it. The index does not explain the fall in depth, and the pension score rests partly on data the report says were missing. Uganda’s lead is now three points over Kenya and four over Ghana.

($1 = Shs3,710.6, the Bank of Uganda June average)