I welcome you to the website of St. Ignatius University Kabale (IGUKA), owned by the Trustees of Kabale Diocese and licensed as a private university in 2023. It was established as a response to the development challenges of Africa as a continent and Kigezi Sub-region in Uganda and its environs, whose population has remained stuck in an economy based on subsistence farming with poor farming practices coupled with the challenge of land fragmentation, depleted quality of the soils and significantly reduced crop yields. The response was to focus on education programs and research tailored to promote sustainable agriculture, industrialization and improved livelihoods.

IGUKA is in a unique position to harness development opportunities by focusing on preserving and promoting the agricultural and tourism potentials of the region while harnessing opportunities in the inadequately tapped resources for the development of international trade, technology development and technology transfer and improving human health. IGUKA does this by combining technical and skills education with mainstream University education. This offers an opportunity to produce skilled and innovative graduates who are able to propel technology development and transfer, the industrialization and value addition and international trade to improve livelihoods and development of the region.

Through IGUKA, Kabale Diocese, joins in participating positively in global, regional and national goals to tackle difficult societal questions by aligning research and teaching with international development aspirations of transforming our world through the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals; Africa’s Agenda 2063 “The Africa We Want”; the East African Community’s Regional Development Cooperation Strategy (RDCS); and Uganda’s National Development Plan III (NDP III). The niche of the university is on “practical education for entrepreneurial skills relevant for social change” with a mandate of “a holistic transformation of students through hands-on and entrepreneurial skills training aimed at the development and transformation of society”.

This website introduces you to activities at IGUKA and the personnel behind the development of the university. You will be able to interact with programmes offered at the university and the different research initiatives being undertake.