Comparative Analysis of Budget Releases and Expenditure Efficiency Across Uganda’s Foreign Missions

Abstract

Foreign missions play a strategic role in advancing Uganda's diplomatic relations, promoting trade and investment, protecting national interests, and delivering consular services abroad. Efficient management of public resources allocated to these missions is therefore essential for achieving Uganda's foreign policy objectives. Despite ongoing public financial management reforms, limited empirical evidence exists regarding regional differences in budget releases and expenditure efficiency across Uganda's foreign missions. This study examined regional variations in budget releases, budget absorption rates and unspent budget balances among Uganda's foreign missions in East Africa, the rest of Africa and regions outside Africa. Specifically, the study compared budget releases across the three regions, examined differences in budget releases, budget absorption rates and unspent balances between missions located in Africa and those outside Africa. A quantitative cross-sectional research design was adopted using secondary data extracted from the Government of Uganda's FY 2024/25 Semi-Annual Budget Performance Report. Descriptive statistics were used to summarise the data, while one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and independent-samples t-tests were conducted at a 5% level of significance to test for regional differences. The findings revealed that in terms of unspent budget balances, foreign missions in East Africa recorded the highest mean unspent budget balance at UGX 0.407 billion, followed by missions outside Africa at UGX 0.369 billion, while missions in the rest of Africa recorded the lowest mean unspent budget balance at UGX 0.066 billion.