Uganda has won the bid to host the 2025 UNESCO Africa Engineering Week and Conference, which will take place at the state-of-the-art Speke Resort Convention Centre in Munyonyo, Kampala.
This is a major achievement for both the country and the venue, further boosting Uganda’s status as one of Africa’s rising destinations for meetings, conferences, and exhibitions.
The event will run from 14th to 20th September 2025 and is being organised by the Uganda Institution of Professional Engineers (UIPE), with support from the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) and other partners.
It will be held under the theme “Leveraging Engineering Innovations and Technology to Accelerate Africa’s Socio-Economic Transformation.” It is expected to attract engineers, academics, policymakers, researchers, students, and industry leaders from across the African continent.
The choice of Speke Resort Convention Centre as the venue highlights its fast-growing reputation as a preferred location for international conferences. Since opening in January 2024, Speke Resort has hosted several major events, including the 19th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit, the 3rd G77 + China South Summit, the Uganda-EU Business Forum, and the 2024 ITU Global Symposium for Regulators, among other international events.
Located along the shores of Lake Victoria, just 13 kilometres from Kampala, Speke Resort offers a 4,400-seat auditorium, three large ballrooms, 19 meeting rooms, six outdoor venues, and 476 guest rooms.
The centre also has a floating restaurant that can host more than 900 people, plus an Olympic-size swimming pool, spa, gym, equestrian centre, and helicopter services. These facilities make it ideal for both business and leisure visitors.
Juliana Kagwa, CEO of the Uganda Tourism Board, said the choice of Speke Resort reflects Uganda’s growing ability to deliver world-class events.
“We are proud to welcome engineers from across Africa to this iconic space where innovation, collaboration, and culture come together,” she said.
Hosting this conference is also in line with Uganda’s national strategy to grow its Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) sector. According to the 2025 Tourism Statistical Abstract, Uganda hosted 491 MICE events in 2024, attracting 32,693 international and 69,721 local participants. These events generated an estimated USD 27.6 million in tourism revenue, contributing about 6.1 percent of total tourism earnings.
Uganda aims to nearly double these numbers by 2026. The goal is to host more than 980 MICE events annually, welcome over 60,000 international delegates, and grow MICE-related earnings to between USD 45 and 50 million. The plan also includes increasing the share of MICE tourists to at least 10 percent of international arrivals, securing no fewer than 15 major events per year, and training over 100 professionals in MICE-related services.
The 2025 UNESCO engineering conference is seen as a strategic opportunity to attract even more events in related fields such as infrastructure, education, innovation, and sustainability.
UNESCO Africa Engineering Week is held every year to promote the importance of engineering in solving Africa’s development challenges. It brings together governments, businesses, educators, and civil society to share ideas and encourage innovation. The 2025 edition in Uganda will include keynote speeches, technical sessions, exhibitions, and outreach activities focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). These activities aim to inspire the next generation of African engineers.
As Uganda prepares to host the 11th UNESCO Africa Engineering Week and the 9th African Engineering Conference, the spotlight will be on Speke Resort Convention Centre—a venue that has quickly become central to the country’s international event-hosting efforts. The upcoming conference is expected to boost Uganda’s global image, promote engineering excellence, and contribute to broader social and economic progress.
