IN SHORT: The African Development Bank approved $180 million to transform Uganda’s Arua Airport into an international gateway on June 19. Phase 1 of the Uganda Airports Development Programme will build a 3.5-kilometre paved runway capable of handling Boeing 777 aircraft, a passenger terminal for 700,000 annual travellers, a cargo terminal handling 25,000 tonnes per year, a new control tower, and access roads. Arua is Uganda’s second-busiest airport, located 450 kilometres from Kampala near the borders with South Sudan and the DRC. Construction will create 500 direct and 1,400 indirect jobs.
Uganda has secured the largest single infrastructure investment in its aviation history, with the African Development Bank approving $180 million to turn Arua Airport from a domestic airstrip into a Boeing 777-capable international gateway that positions the West Nile region as a trade and logistics hub connecting Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Board of Directors approved the financing on June 19, describing the project as one that extends well beyond aviation into market access, food export logistics, tourism and regional integration for a corner of Africa that has historically been constrained by poor transport infrastructure despite its agricultural wealth and strategic border location.
- The infrastructure package is comprehensive. A 3.5-kilometre paved runway replaces Arua’s existing limited facility and is capable of accommodating large commercial aircraft including the Boeing 777, enabling direct international freight and passenger services that are currently impossible at Arua. The passenger terminal will handle 700,000 travellers annually, while a dedicated cargo terminal will process 25,000 tonnes per year, primarily perishable agricultural exports including fish, fresh produce, flowers and high-value vegetables from Uganda’s fertile West Nile region.
- The financing structure totals $182.67 million in programme cost. The AfDB provides a $163.43 million loan from its ordinary resources, the African Development Fund contributes $17.18 million in concessional financing, and Uganda’s government contributes $1.77 million in kind. The African Development Fund element gives the project a concessional character appropriate for a regional airport serving one of Uganda’s most economically marginalised regions.
- Arua’s strategic position near two significant markets, South Sudan and the DRC, is the project’s core commercial rationale. South Sudan, despite its ongoing instability, is rebuilding its economy around oil revenues and has a growing demand for imported food and construction materials. The DRC’s expanding mining sector in the northeast, adjacent to the Uganda border, creates both import demand and export logistics requirements that a functional Arua could serve. Cross-border commerce through Arua currently moves primarily by road, at high cost and with significant losses on perishable goods.
- The project connects to Museveni’s June 4 State of the Nation Address, where the president cited Uganda’s seventeen-fold GDP growth and called for accelerated infrastructure investment in energy and transport as the foundation for the next growth phase. Africaspoint covered the address: Museveni: Uganda will hit 50,000MW. The AfDB Arua commitment is the multilateral expression of the same infrastructure-led development thesis.
The Arua airport upgrade sits within the AfDB’s Ten-Year Strategy 2024-2033, which prioritises transport network investment as the enabler of intra-African trade and industrialisation. In Uganda’s context, the project is also complementary to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline under construction from Uganda’s Albertine basin to Tanzania’s Tanga port, which will bring oil revenues into the government budget and create new logistics demand throughout Uganda’s economy. An upgraded Arua airport serving the oil-adjacent West Nile region amplifies the economic benefit of that coming resource windfall.
The Bigger Picture: Uganda has been investing in aviation at pace in 2026. Uganda Airlines committed to 10 new Boeing aircraft in June. Arua is getting a $180 million AfDB upgrade. Museveni has directed that Mbarara Airfield become an international airport. The UAE-backed Kidepo International Airport upgrade is underway. The pattern is consistent: a government that grew its economy seventeen-fold over forty years is now making the aviation infrastructure bets that connect its interior regions to regional and global markets. Arua’s 3.5-kilometre runway capable of handling wide-body jets is the infrastructure that turns a remote border town into a trade gateway. The AfDB is betting $180 million that it works.
Source: African Development Bank, June 19 2026 / The EastAfrican, June 19 2026
