The Ministry is committed to support and implement the manifesto of the National Resistance Movement 2006-2011. Some of the specific programmes that the Ministry is directly charged with include the following.

1. Financial Sector Reforms: Capital Markets
   The Capital Market Authority (CMA) has put into operation the Collective Investments Act (2003). A number of New Market Players have been licensed. Growth in activity on the stock exchange has been tremendous. This is attributed to the increase in the number of products and opportunities on the market.
   
   The Ministry will continue to make improvements in this sector as a means for resource mobilization as envisaged by the President's Election Manifesto.



2. Investors and Innovators: Information Management
   The Ministry is leading the effort to modernize systems through computerisation whilst strengthening the capability for utilizing and maintaining Information and Communication Technology (ICT) within the context of national, social and economic development.



3. Support to Scientific Research
   The Ministry has assisted a number of Scientists engaged in research through Uganda National Council of Science and Technology. The Ministry has also provided funds for the Presidential Science Awards. This is intended to motivate those concerned to excel in their various fields. Funding for Banana Research, under the national planning authority has been earmarked.



4. Investment
   The ministry has made available land to investors through the Uganda Investment Authority in the Namanve Industrial Park.



5. Increasing access to Micro-finance services for the rural poor:
   
   Strategies for the short and medium term.
   1. Implementation of the Micro-finance Outreach Plan (MOP) and its associated Rural Financial Services Programme (RFSP) to spread sustainable micro-finance services to underserved areas to reach the economically active poor.
   2. Implement the Rural Financial Services Strategy to develop a financial infrastructure of Savings and Credit Cooperative Organizations (SACCOs) that are capable of reaching the population in all Sub-counties in order to encourage household savings.
   3. Formulating a policy to guide and regulate all interventions in the micro-finance industry in the area of supervision, regulation, coordination, lending, and savings mobilization
   4. Harmonizing the regulatory framework to aid the supervision and regulation of the various actors in the industry (institutions are currently operating under various pieces of legislations including the cooperative statute, the company act, the moneylenders' act and the micro-finance deposit-taking act. It is important that a clear legal framework is developed for institutions, especially those under tier 4)
   5. Harmonizing the institutional framework to guide the delivery of financial services. We need harmonize the policy oversight of the micro-finance industry and review the existing micro-finance programmes and projects to support the above strategies)
   6. Strengthening SACCOs to promote an infrastructure that is user owned, user managed and user operated.



6. Integration in the East African Customs Union
   The Ministry actively participated in the first phase of negotiating and implementing the East African Customs Union. The Common External Tariff (CET) was accordingly embraced by the three partner states for goods emanating from the Region.
   
   In the second phase after five years, the Customs Union is expected to be complete with free trade among the Partner States and a tariff schedule. In accordance with the principle of asymmetry embedded in the Treaty establishing the East African Customs Union, Uganda and Tanzania will maintain temporary internal tariffs on an agreed list of Kenyan imports and eliminate them gradually over a period of five years. This was in cognizant of the fact that Kenya was more developed. The Customs Union will benefit the region in terms of increased opportunities for investment, more variety of goods for consumption and more intra state trade.



7. Human Resource Development
   Government continues to prioritise training and remuneration of public servants as critical for successfully implementing Government policies and programmes. This effort will continue to be so for the short and medium term.