Opportunities and Challenges of Branding African products and enterprises in Kiswahili: A Case for Uganda

The official status of Swahili in Uganda is more symbolic than functional, the reason it features on Ugandan shilling notes and notices in courts of law. The country’s language policy also stipulates its use in primary and secondary schools, but many schools disregard this matter. Though Kiswahili (often called Swahili) is the official dialect of the East African Community as an economic bloc and its wider use would make Uganda more competitive in the regional trade market and can play a significant role in national development, Kiswahili language has not been readily accepted in Uganda, perhaps owing to bad memories of its use by troops of violent dictator former President Idi Amin Dada. The current regimes and /or Leadership in Uganda is apprehensively placing a lot of endeavor to popularise Kiswahili, though tardily reasonably compared to other East African countries. This paper therefore intends to elucidate Opportunities and challenges of branding African products and enterprises in Kiswahili using Uganda as a benchmark