Uganda, Africa
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Report Date: December 12, 2015
Activities
We have spent quite a lot of time with Thomas Lubari and his wife Joyce this year. Matt was with them in February and carried out a partial review of both the micro-loan programme and also the vocational training programme (UGA04c). The loan programme is continuing to go well and is being run by Joyce and Winnie, who is also Joyce’s co-worker.
This programme has its challenges and in recent times Winnie and Joyce have been actively working to reduce the number of beneficiaries. When we visited and reviewed the programme last year there were somewhere around 100 beneficiaries and there had been a maximum of 107. That number has now reduced to around 50. This does not mean that all of the other beneficiaries do not owe money to the programme. Many of them do and their loans have run past the repayment date, sometimes by 8 months to 2 years. Most of the beneficiaries with money outstanding who have not fully repaid within the due time are still making some small payments but there are others who have defaulted or left the area and are unable to be traced.
There are still some new people coming into the programme. When they do they have to be vouched for by four existing members and also have their application approved by their local Councillor (LC1). Most of the new beneficiaries are from the church but there is also a Muslim woman. Loan sizes range from 200,000 UGX (US$70) to 1.5m (US$500).
The 50 remaining active beneficiaries are paying well and are continuing to benefit from the loan cycles. Loan sizes are increasing and need to, particularly as there are inflationary pressures.
Joyce and Winnie seem to have decided that they are not going to extend the programme beyond where it is now. We are inclined to agree with them as they have very busy lives and clearly had, and continue to, struggle to chase people up if they are not paying.
We also had the opportunity after the Foundations for Farming training in Jinja in June to visit a women’s group called Nambi Sepuya in a village near Buwenge about 30 kms from Jinja. This group has interesting potential to develop into another loan programme and also to utilize FFF principles in this area.
New Profiles
Marriam from Buwenge Village
Marriam impressed us. She is a secondary school teacher with two children and her husband is a lawyer who lives in Kampala. She attended Foundations for Farming training and took a very active role in it. She is dynamic in her community and led the meeting of the Nambi Sepuya women’s group along with her mother (Joyce) when we met together on the Saturday afternoon.
During this visit we did not meet with any of the loan beneficiaries as the primary focus of our visit this year was the Foundations For Farming training in Jinja. However Thomas has given us a spreadsheet of how the loan programme is presently working.
Njeru, where the Life Gospel Ministry church operates from, is an extremely poor area. The loan programme has benefited the local community and the members of the church significantly in the past.
There is a possible opportunity to provide funds to seed a programme in Buwenge District. There is already a low level loan programme operating and they have registered as an NGO.
This area is rural and may have greater potential for BHW input with Foundations for Farming. When we visited we were taken to an area of land where they were producing additional income through crops. Marrium clearly is in a leadership role there and was enthusiastic about FFF principles and potential.
The fact that the programme has shrunk in numbers so significantly is challenging. We are not sure why that is. Most of the other loan programmes which BHW supports have not had that attrition rate.
When Matt was there in February he wondered if the programme was ‘mature’ in the sense that it did not need additional funding at this stage and the loan sizes could grow naturally and from within the programme. After this later visit we are not so sure and are thinking that there should be one further input to this programme and then nothing further at that stage, unless something changes.
The Buwenge village proposal is tantalizing but Joyce herself has some questions about its potential and also openly wondered to us whether the women’s group had another donor somewhere. We had a look at the minutes of meetings and can see that this is a possibility, but not clear.
The need for loan sizes to continue to grow. We agreed that the maximum loan size is to be 1.5m UGX (US$500). We should continue to fund it till it gets close to this figure.
1) Wisdom to know whether the loan programme can be extended to or replicated in Nombe village near Buwenge
2) Growth in leadership for the programme
3) Joyce and Thomas both seemed extremely tired and stressed when we were there, even during the FFF training
4) Wisdom to know when the Jinja programme is ‘mature’ and needs no further funding contribution
5) For a bigger uptake in Foundations for Farming in Njeru and also in Buwenge
We had a good look at the books of the loan programme and also have a spreadsheet of the loanees, loan sizes etc. The difficulty with this programme is really knowing when it has reached what it needs to, and what the future holds for it. We think that Joyce particularly doesn’t seem highly motivated to expand the programme or bring new people in. There is a sense that she may be somewhat disappointed that so many beneficiaries have defaulted in some form in payment.
Having looked at the books and seeing that they are OK and also that there are good checks and balances in place we feel BHW should continue to support it at its present level for another year but it should then be reviewed if there is no evidence of further potential.
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