We convened the Roundtable Policy Talks on IP-backed lending, bringing together key voices to explore how intellectual property can be better recognised, valued, and financed within Uganda’s creative economy.
This conversation comes at an important time.
Uganda’s passage of the Copyright & Neighbouring Rights Amendment Bill 2025 marks a meaningful step in strengthening the country’s legal foundation for intellectual property. It signals progress in recognising the role of creative work, not only as cultural expression, but also as an economic asset with real commercial value.
As creatives continue to generate valuable intellectual property through content, brands, catalogues, designs, and other creative outputs, the question is becoming more urgent: can our systems recognise this value well enough to finance it?
That is the opportunity at the heart of this conversation.
IP-backed lending presents a pathway to unlock financing for creatives and creative businesses that often struggle to access traditional forms of capital. It also opens the door to deeper financial inclusion and stronger positioning of the creative economy within national development and investment frameworks.
For this shift to happen, there is need for coordinated action across policymakers, regulators, financial institutions, and ecosystem actors. The conversation must move beyond recognition of intellectual property and toward the practical systems that can support it, including valuation models, risk frameworks, legal enforcement, and financing structures that respond to the realities of the sector.
This is the broader shift we are working toward: moving from recognition to structuring, and from policy to practice.
Watch the full conversation below.
