09ebo-5500 Adapted financial services for collective farmers enterprises in Mbarara district
| budget |
€ 67.012,27 |
status |
execution |
| start date |
01-01-2009 |
date end |
31-12-2010 |
| location |
Mbarara |
country |
uganda |
| financer |
Trias |
| executor |
Ebirungi Biruga Omututu SACCO Ltd |
intervention level |
local |
| Programmes |
| work area 08: Banking and Credit sector (including Insurance) | IFAP 08: Ensure secure access to resources | |
| description |
The project is located in the Mbarara district. The large majority of its inhabitantants, 80% of the 400,000 inhabitants, are farmers completely dependent on agriculture for their survival. The majority of them earns less than 5 euro per month. The main problems that these farmers have, is that they (...more...) |
| description |
The project is located in the Mbarara district. The large majority of its inhabitantants, 80% of the 400,000 inhabitants, are farmers completely dependent on agriculture for their survival. The majority of them earns less than 5 euro per month. The main problems that these farmers have, is that they are subsistence farmers and lack income and food security, access to markets, lack of capital and lack of organization. Ebo Savings and Credit Cooperative Society is a member based Microfinance Institution, which is based in the Mbarara district, registered as a SACCO in 2002. Currently Ebo has over 2300 members and serves the areas of Kashaari County, Mbarara Municipality and the neighboring districts. Ebo is focused on providing services to the economically active poor and has ample attention for cross cutting issues as gender, HIV and the environment as they are part of the contempary community. Ebo closely cooperates with other local organizations (other Trias partners) as Mbadifa. There is a close cooperation on the so called PAED (Participatory Agricultural Enterprise Development, created by CIAT) approach where Mbadifa orients and organizes the farmers, and facilitates a process in which the organized farmers set up a collective enterprise. As capital is necessary to put into practice this enterprise idea, Ebo can offer adapted finance. In coordination with other actors as Mbadifa Farmers Asociation an integral assistance is offered to the poor farmers in order to alleviate their poverty and generate other opportunities.
The objective of this specific project is: smallholder farm households have increased investment in their farming business
Expected results:
81 groups (1620 households) have increased investment in their farming business.
Activities:
Train groups in savings and loan management (both internal and external)
Access and appraise loan applications
Disburse credit (adjusted to the type of enterprise and agricultural season)
Follow up and track performance of groups in loan management
Develop appropiate agro-enterprise loan products for selected enterprises. (...less...) |
| results & observations |
Ebirungi Biruga Omututu Savings and Credit Cooperative Society (EBO SACCO) focuses on providing services to the economically active poor. Goal of this project is that smallholder farm households have increased investment in their farming business.
EBO developed two loan products for selected agro-enterprises in banana and beans. 14 groups used (...more...) |
| final results & observations |
Ebirungi Biruga Omututu Savings and Credit Cooperative Society (EBO SACCO) focuses on providing services to the economically active poor. Goal of this project is that smallholder farm households have increased investment in their farming business.
EBO developed two loan products for selected agro-enterprises in banana and beans. 14 groups used these loans, totalling UGX 105M. This number was lower than planned (the target was 30). The main reason was that other groups were not yet able to produce sufficiently qualitative business plans to assess their eligibility for a loan. By the end of 2009, loans had not yet matured (were not ready for repayment).
EBO extended her services nearer to the small farmers by opening a service point in Kagongi sub-county. They opened the Igorora Branch in September 2009.56 groups (or approximately 1120 households) have established clear rules and regulations and procedures for internal savings and loan schemes. . All these groups agreed on rules and procedures for internal loan schemes and started implementing the schemes. They registered 1230 active savers (i.e. members who save the agreed minimum compulsory savings at the frequency set).
62 groups (or approximately 1240 households) (opened savings accounts at EBO SACCO, and average savings per group increased to UGX 150,000.
These results clearly point the change in attitude towards financial savings. There is a clear demand for micro-financial services, and EBO SACCO is in a position to meet these needs.
The project was reached smallholder farm households – through their groups –who previously had no access to micro-financial services. The project capacitated groups to set-up and manage internal savings and loans schemes, additionally, they were linked to EBO SACCO to access external agricultural loans for investing in their collectively selected agro-enterprise.
Provision of (agricultural) loan capital to savings and credit cooperatives will allow SACCOS to serve the rural farming population. Nevertheless, the project should never be stand-alone, and should be accompanied by capacity building, Organisational Development/Institutional Strengthening support and close mentoring / supervision. This is done by Trias advisors.
The results of the project are good. Although not all credit funds had been loaned to farmer groups by the end of 2009, an additional UGX 20 million was loaned by mid-February 2010. (...less...) |
| specialisms |
| Banking and credit sector (incl. insurance) | Financial management | Market and chain development | |
PROPOSAL
| Agri-agency | Own contribution executor | Other parties | Total requested budget |
|---|
| Trias | EBO | | |
| € 0,00 + € 0,00 | € 0,00 | € 0,00 | € 0,00 |
The project is located in the Mbarara district. The large majority of its inhabitants, 80% of the 400,000, are farmers completely dependent on agriculture for their survival. The majority of them earns less than 5 euro per month. The main problems that these farmers have, is that they are subsistence farmers and lack income and food security, access to markets, lack of capital and lack of organization.
The Mbarara district has a strong potential thanks to its strategic geographic position as a food provider for neighboring countries as Congo, Rwanda and Tanzania. However, currently only 30% of the productive land is used for agriculture, mainly by small scale farmers on plots of less than 5 ha.
Ebo Savings and Credit Cooperative Society is a member based Microfinance Institution, which is based in the Mbarara district. It was formed and started operations in 1995 as a village rotating savings and credit association and at first it was driven by self help spirit of available group members. Due to a continuous shortage of capital to expand the business of the founder members, the group came up with a plan to set up a micro-finance institution. As a result, Ebo Sacco was created and was registered in 2002. Currently Ebo has over 2300 members and serves the areas of Kashaari County, Mbarara Municipality and the neighboring districts. Ebo is focused on providing services to the economically active poor and has ample attention for cross cutting issues as gender, HIV and the environment as they are part of the contempary community. Ebo closely cooperates with other local organizations (other Trias partners) as Mbadifa. There is a close cooperation on the so called PAED (Participatory Agricultural Enterprise Development, created by CIAT) approach where Mbadifa orients and organizes the farmers, and facilitates a process in which the organized farmers set up a collective enterprise. As capital is necessary to put into practice this enterprise idea, Ebo can offer adapted finance. Also Ebo facilitates training to farmers on for instance creditmanagement. In coordination with other actors as Mbadifa Farmers Asociation an integral assistance is offered to the poor farmers in order to alleviate their poverty and generate other opportunities.
The objective of this specific project is: smallholder farm households have increased investment in their farming business
Expected results:
81 groups (1620 households) have increased investment iin their farming business.
Activities:
Train groups in savings and loan management (both internal and external)
Access and appraise loan applications
Disburse credit (adjusted to the type of enterprise and agricultural season)
Follow up and track performance of groups in loan management
Develop appropiate agro-enterprise loan products for selected enterprises.
Budget : 51.870 Euro is foreseen as credit fund.
Other expenses are not included as they are an integral part of the overall functioning of EBO.
As the provided credit to the collective enterprises who are formed by farmers themselves based on trainings they receive according to the PAED approach, the success of the enterprises is normally higher than if this were isolated loans without any additional support. It is expected that the defaulting rate normally would be quite low so the fund should increase and benefit more farmers in the long run. The integral approach, which includes Finance and the PAED approach (developped by CIAT) is an interesting approach for its carefull enterprises definition, the ownership of the target group and for its before mentioned integral approach and therefore would be interesting to document and replicate. The PO is embedded in a more integral development strategy with the overall goal to alleviate the poverty of this farmers and to improve their food security and deals with the different factors (good business planning, acces to finance, organization) that normally limit the farmers to improve their condition. |
GOALS
