Uganda and Its Neighbours in East Africa

Uganda has no coast, five neighbours and one big oil project that runs through another country. This guide maps how each border shapes trade, security and politics as of October 2026.

The Uganda neighbourhood decides what the country can sell, how its oil reaches the sea and where its army fights. Uganda is landlocked, so every container, litre of fuel and barrel of crude must cross somebody else’s territory.

For US readers this matters because Uganda is building one of Africa’s longest oil pipelines through Tanzania and still moves most of its imports through Kenya. Investors, aid workers and travellers all depend on how those relationships hold.

Uganda borders five countries: Kenya to the east, Tanzania and Rwanda to the south, DR Congo to the west and South Sudan to the north. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics counted about 45.9 million people in the 2024 national census.

Its home bloc is the East African Community, which has eight partner states, a headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania, and about 331.1 million citizens. Uganda holds roughly one in seven of them, measured against its 2024 census count.

President Yoweri Museveni won a seventh term in the election of 15 January 2026, with about 71.65 percent of valid votes, and was sworn in on 12 May 2026. His son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, commands the armed forces and has become a visible voice in regional diplomacy.

Kenya is Uganda’s door to the Indian Ocean through the Northern Corridor, the road and rail route from Mombasa to Kampala. In 2025 Mombasa handled a record 45.45 million tonnes, including 10.91 million tonnes of transit cargo, of which Uganda supplies about two-thirds, according to Kenyan figures.

About 95 percent of Uganda’s petroleum products, roughly 2.96 billion litres a year, still arrive through Mombasa. Kenya’s standard gauge railway stops at Naivasha, and an extension towards Kisumu and Malaba began construction in July 2026.

Bank of Uganda data show export receipts from Kenya of US$19.8 million in June 2026. That is down more than 72 percent from a peak of US$72 million in May 2025.

In March 2025 exports to Kenya fell to US$17.7 million, the lowest in six years. A Bank of Uganda research director tied the fall to measures in Kenya and Rwanda meant to protect farmers.

Kenya depends on Uganda in return. In 2025 Uganda was the largest single destination for Kenyan exports, taking 14.5 percent of earnings, up 28.8 percent on 2024, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics says.

The lake border has been calmer since late July 2025, when Presidents Ruto and Museveni sealed a deal on joint fishing licences around Migingo, a disputed island in Lake Victoria. Politics can still flare, as when General Muhoozi posted in October 2022 that his forces could take Nairobi within two weeks, before Museveni apologised.

On 3 October 2026 the same general endorsed Ruto’s 2027 re-election bid on X, an endorsement with no formal government backing. The episode shows how personal the Kampala and Nairobi link can be.

Tanzania is where Uganda’s crude is meant to reach the sea. The East African Crude Oil Pipeline runs 1,447 km from Kabaale to Chongoleani near Tanga, per the pipeline company in October 2026, while the Daily Monitor gives 1,443 km.

Four shareholders own it, as set out at the project launch on 1 February 2022. Two are state firms, Uganda’s UNOC and Tanzania’s TPDC.

The Daily Monitor reported on 6 August 2026 that the pipeline was 91 percent complete, with Pump Station One, shared by the Tilenga and Kingfisher fields, at 83 percent. The deputy managing director said the remaining works should finish by the end of 2026 so that the project is ready for first oil.

First oil has slipped before: dates promised for 2018, 2020 and 2025 passed without commercial production, the Monitor noted on 17 August 2026. Recent delays have been linked to the Middle East conflict, which forced cargo to be rerouted, and to Ebola-related travel limits on specialist staff.

At launch in 2022 the two fields were planned to reach a combined plateau of 230,000 barrels a day. The government says construction has created about 10,000 jobs, roughly 75 percent of them held by Tanzanians.

On 13 March 2026 Uganda and Tanzania signed a framework agreement for a standard gauge railway from Isaka to Kikagati and Mpondwe. In August 2026 their state oil firms signed a non-binding agreement with the trader Vitol for an energy hub at Tanga.

Even so, Uganda still barely uses Tanzanian ports. Tanzanian ports handled about 47,600 tonnes of Ugandan cargo in 2025, while Uganda supplies about two-thirds of the 10.91 million tonnes of transit cargo at Mombasa.

Museveni made two working visits to Tanzania in 2026, in February and on 5 and 6 August, at the invitation of President Samia Suluhu Hassan. In February the two leaders pledged to fast-track transport and energy projects, including a refined-products pipeline to Tanga.

Rwanda shows how fast a border can change trade. The Gatuna crossing was closed in February 2019 amid accusations of espionage and political meddling, and it reopened on 31 January 2022.

Ugandan exports to Rwanda exceeded US$211 million in 2018, against about US$13 million going the other way. Trade plummeted in 2019, and in March 2025 exports to Rwanda stood at US$2.5 million, against a monthly average of US$20 million.

Muhoozi’s visit to Kigali in January 2022 is credited with the decision to reopen. On 20 April 2026 the two governments opened the 12th Joint Permanent Commission in Kampala, a senior officials’ meeting covering defence, trade, infrastructure and migration.

Rwanda also sits on the far side of Uganda’s Congo problem. The M23 rebels, a Congolese armed group allegedly backed by Rwanda, fight in a different part of eastern Congo from the one where Uganda hunts the ADF.

Congo is one of Uganda’s top export markets. Bank of Uganda figures show US$71 million of export receipts from Congo in April 2026, US$77 million in May and US$79.4 million in June.

Operation Shujaa, run by Uganda’s army (UPDF) and Congo’s army (FARDC), began in November 2021 against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). It has intensified since January 2026.

Uganda, Congo and the United States designate the ADF a terrorist group, and the United Nations sanctions it. In April 2026 the UPDF said a raid on an ADF camp on the Epulu river freed more than 200 captives, figures that come from the army’s own statement.

Outside analysts have asked whether the mission is only about the ADF. A 2022 report by New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and the Congolese research group Ebuteli asked whether Operation Shujaa was fighting the ADF or securing economic interests.

Roads are the commercial side of the same border. Uganda and Congo are jointly upgrading a 133 km corridor from Mpondwe and Kasindi to Beni and Butembo, and the Mpondwe-Kasindi bridge was substantially complete on 4 March 2026.

South Sudan is the neighbour where Uganda has put soldiers and money at the same time. The Ugandan army began deploying in Juba in March 2025 at the request of President Salva Kiir.

Regional security officials told The EastAfrican in March 2025 that Uganda feared a return to war in Juba and wanted to protect its investments there. A war, they said, could damage what they called Uganda’s main market in East Africa.

On 10 August 2025 the African Union’s Peace and Security Council met South Sudanese civil society in Juba to discuss the Ugandan force. An attendee, Edmund Yakani, said both sides stressed the need for withdrawal to ease political and security tensions.

The Daily Monitor reported on 20 August 2026 that Congo and South Sudan had overtaken Kenya among Uganda’s top export markets. The Bank of Uganda numbers it quoted gave values for Congo and Kenya only.

The East African Community is the bloc that ties these relationships together. Its eight partner states are Burundi, DR Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, and its treaty entered into force on 7 July 2000.

The bloc is under financial strain, with some members late paying their statutory contributions. Kenya’s president, William Ruto, as chair, called an emergency summit for 7 March 2026 on financing and the post of secretary general.

Lake Victoria links Uganda with Kenya and Tanzania, and the Migingo fishing deal of July 2025 is a rare signed arrangement on the lake. Uganda tends to follow Kenya and Tanzania on routes to the sea, and to lead on troops and diplomacy in Congo and South Sudan.

Uganda’s borders are also a humanitarian frontier. On 30 September 2026 it hosted 2,050,820 refugees and asylum seekers, made up of 1,965,952 refugees and 84,868 asylum seekers.

UNHCR describes Uganda’s response as one of Africa’s largest refugee operations. The monthly figures come from the Ugandan government’s Office of the Prime Minister and UNHCR.

Investors should watch the date of first oil, the contest between Mombasa and Dar es Salaam for Ugandan cargo, and trade with Congo and South Sudan. The most exposed foreign operators are TotalEnergies (62 percent of the pipeline company), CNOOC (8 percent) and DP World, which has run Dar es Salaam’s Terminal 1 since April 2024.