Patrick Kalenzi’s resilience memoir raises troubling questions about tribalism and narrative

Patrick Kalenzi's recently published memoir, "Tears Run Dry: A Story of Courage in the Face of Poverty, Tribalism," has sparked significant discussion across Uganda's business and literary circles, revealing deeper structural challenges that European investors must understand when entering East African markets. The book chronicles Kalenzi's journey from poverty to entrepreneurial success, but more importantly, it documents how tribal affiliations—rather than merit or market dynamics—continue to shape access to capital, business networks, and institutional support in Uganda. This narrative raises critical questions about the stability and transparency of business environments that foreign investors are increasingly targeting across East Africa. **Understanding Uganda's Institutional Reality** Uganda has positioned itself as a gateway economy for European businesses expanding into Sub-Saharan Africa, with a growing services sector, improving digital infrastructure, and a relatively business-friendly regulatory environment compared to regional peers. However, Kalenzi's account suggests that beneath these macro-level improvements, informal institutional barriers remain deeply entrenched. The prevalence of ethnic-based patronage networks—what economists term "affinity bias in capital allocation"—creates invisible transaction costs for outsider entrepreneurs and foreign investors alike. This phenomenon isn't unique to Uganda. Research from the African Development Bank has documented similar patterns across East Africa, where approximately 40-50% of small business lending