Started 12 years ago, the Uganda Printers Association (UPA) brings together people in the printing industry.

“At the time of starting this association, we had less than 10 printing firms in the country,” says UPA Vice Chairperson Stephen Wakida, “This industry has grown to over 100 registered printing firms in a space of 12 years.”

The Uganda Printers Association was established in 1997 with an aggregate objective of bringing on board all people in the printing industry so that stakeholders could recognise them and utilise their services.

He says at its inception, the printers had very few good printing machines which were mostly single colour machines. “But now we can talk of 6-colour Heidelberg offset printing machines which men and women interested in this industry have imported from German into the country,” he says.

The National Book Trust of Uganda (NABOTU) is an umbrella association of book publishers, printers, book sellers, writers, book promotion and all organisations involved in book development. It has many affiliate associations such as that of book sellers, libraries, publishers, literature fraternity and publishers. It was established in 1997 taking over from the Uganda publishers and book sellers association which had been formed in 1990 and was only catering for the publishers and book sellers.

According to James Tumusiime, the chairman NABOTU, the biggest challenge is the myth that Africans do not write, read and publish and that people are satisfied to live in ignorance. That culture has been sustained and the task now is to get everyone involved through organizing events like the book week festival and other recurrent advocacy programmes.