Ugandan enterprises face persistent systemic constraints that hinder growth and sustainability, yet comprehensive frameworks for diagnosing these issues and building organisational resilience remain underdeveloped in the local context. This action research study aimed to collaboratively diagnose the root causes of systemic business constraints and to co-create a practical resilience framework tailored for the Ugandan entrepreneurial ecosystem. Employing a multi-cycle action research design, the study integrated participatory workshops with enterprise owners, in-depth interviews with sector stakeholders, and iterative prototyping of framework components within selected small and medium-sized enterprises. Diagnostic analysis revealed that access to tailored finance and managerial skills deficits were the most cited constraints, each highlighted by over 70% of participants. The co-created resilience framework prioritises adaptive capacity building through embedded mentorship and financial literacy integration. The study concludes that a participatory, systemic diagnosis is critical for developing contextually relevant support mechanisms, and that resilience is fundamentally linked to continuous organisational learning and adaptive practice. It is recommended that microfinance institutions and business development service providers adopt the proposed framework's diagnostic toolkit and integrate its resilience-building modules into their core client engagement programmes. Action research, business resilience, systemic constraints, enterprise development, Uganda, microfinance This paper provides a novel, co-created diagnostic and intervention framework that directly links the identification of systemic business constraints to the development of specific organisational resilience capabilities within the Ugandan context.