Uganda Agricultural Investment Summit to be dedicated to food heroes

AGRA, CASA and the Uganda Investment Authority have announced that the Uganda Agricultural Investment Summit, to be held on Wednesday 7 July 2021, will be dedicated to the memory of two colleagues who succumbed to Covid-19 last week.

Speaking on behalf of the consortium Alvaro Valverde, from CASA, said: “It was with great sadness that we received the news of the demise of two great contributors to Uganda’s development in the food and agriculture sector; Sheila K Mugyenzi of the Uganda Investment Authority and Noble Banadda from the Malabo Montpellier Panel.

Both Sheila and Noble had dedication and passion towards transforming the sector and had been invited as key speakers to the Uganda Agricultural Investment Summit.

To honour and celebrate their lives, we will observe a moment of silence at the start of the summit and will dedicate the event to their memory. Their passing will galvanize us to ensure we make changes in investment that impact on the food security and livelihoods of the people of Uganda. Our thoughts are with the friends, family and colleagues of Sheila and Noble”.

Noble Banadda was a professor of biosystems engineering at Makerere University. In 2012, at age 37, he became one of the youngest people in the history of the university to attain full professorship. He died on 1 July 2021, in Kampala, Uganda, of complications of Covid-19. Noble was one of the 17 international experts, in agriculture and related fields, who made up the influential the Malabo Montpellier Panel.

Sheila K. Mugyenzi was the director of investment promotion and business development at the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA). She had a long and successful career with UIA, occupying numerous positions over the past 22 years.  She will be remembered for always being upbeat, courteous, respectful, and a model professional in her work. She died on 2 July 2021.