With the increased volume of financial transactions in the cooperative organisations, and the need for accountability and reliability by the members, it is important to improve on the financial management skills of both the board and staff of UCA and its members. UCA is an Umbrella body of Cooperatives in Uganda. It was registered in 1961 under the Cooperative Ordinance 1946 as amended. Its membership includes cooperatives from sectors such as production, marketing, financial services, transport, etc. UCA has three main mandates: - To carry out advocacy and representation of the Ugandan cooperatives - To provide education and training and - To mobilize resources for the development of the cooperative movement. UCA has implemented many projects mainly in the area of forming/ strengthening co-operative organisations, promotion of rural finance and agricultural development. It has been in these areas because of the fact that the membership of co-operatives and hence UCA, are mainly involved in agriculture which happens to be the dominant sector in Uganda (currently employing about 85% of the country’s population). UCA plays the role of a catalyst for change and tries to build the necessary capacities so that the co-operatives can continue to provide services to members on their own. The first generation of projects concentrated on financial services because in the effort to start afresh, it was searching for interventions that would give solution to the main problem of the traditional co-operatives which was the lack of internally generated capital from the system itself. In order to build a strong base for the new co-operative movement, ways had to be found of providing financial resources on a sustainable basis. At that point UCA started to promote what was then called “village banks” but were in effect SACCOs (Savings and Credit Co-operatives) since the communities then frowned at co-operatives. However as UCA’s pilot SACCOs (re-branded Village Banks) operated and became successful, co-operatives started gaining acceptability and as of now SACCOs is a buzz word; not only popular with the rural communities but with all sectors of the Ugandan? as well as the Government itself. For the first ten years UCA had to lay this foundation concentrating only on the formation/ strengthening of SACCOs precisely because it knew that one of the causes of the crisis in the co-operative movement had been a financial crisis which became clear when government subsidies and funding were withdrawn. It would have made no sense starting again without addressing this problem. UCA started with a pilot of 8 SACCOs in 1997/98 but due to its success, the approach has since been rolled out many times to the extent that there are now more than 2,500 SACCOs across the country embracing UCA ‘s methodology. Even government has now adopted UCA’s model as a way of making financial services accessible to the rural areas (in particular) and all other needful citizens in general. In another effort about 8 years ago, UCA started to intervene in the agricultural sector which has a lot of problems ranging from low productivity to poor marketing and the absence of value addition. As a consequence of this, farmers in Uganda continue to live in a poverty trap. UCA's intervention has been based on an Integrated Approach where the producers have access to organised production services as well as organised marketing services. The farmers have access to financial services (from their SACCOs) which enable them to procure production support services and inputs. They also access production advisory services/extension from their production co-operatives. They also access organised value addition and marketing services through their marketing and value addition co-operatives (also popularly known as area co-operatives enterprises). This approach ensures sustainable empowerment of farmers. Despite all efforts, lack of awareness of the importance of financial management policies and procedures is a big problem, which becomes clear from the number of issues raised in the auditors management letters. The underlying causes are a limited adherence to policies and procedures, and lack of basic financial management knowledge and skills. For those reasons, it is necessary to review the operational policies and procedures and to create awareness about proper financial management in senior staff meetings. By the end of this project; 1. There will be increased adherence to the financial policies and procedures by the beneficiary organisations 2. The board and staff of UCA,Unions, ACEs, SACCOs and other partner organisations will have improved on their knowledge of financial management 3. Audit reports will be un-qualified

Strengthening of the partner organisation and capacity building The project is expected to strengthen UCA by mentoring and strengthening youth co-operatives that later expand the membership base of UCA. As participating youth co-operatives gain new competence and practice new approaches, the trained managers and leaders are expected to become advocates for creativity and innovation. Therefore UCA members, leaders and managers should be able to understand their roles better, develop clear strategies and objectives and relate better with other people and organisations. Through membership, share capital and annual subscriptions, the recruited youth co-operatives shall be able to contribute to UCA’s resource envelope hence widening its capacity to play its role and provide services. Budget 1 MSEK (2009)

Strengthening of the partner organisation and capacity building The project targets staff of different SCC and Vi partner organisations involved in rural development activities, in Eastern Africa, who are trained as trainers. These in turn work (mostly) with leaders, managers and members of co-operatives, farmers’ associations or other groups with economic objectives. At the beginning of a year, the management of the projects or organisations identified select the participants (competent staff) from their projects / organisations, who are taken through all the 4 different arenas during the course of the year (trained as trainers). The trained trainers then are charged with sensitising, mobilising, training officials and members of the co-operative organisations / farmer associations and conduct follow-ups. Thus the project provides capacity to SCC/Vi partner organisations so that they attain the competence and capacity to continuously foster leadership development in the process of organisational development in member based organisations (MBO) and informal sectors. A special interest is paid to identification and reaching out to female members of staff and member organizations. Later in the project, beneficiary organisations would gain new competence as they would apply new approaches in practice. Trained managers and leaders would demonstrate their newly acquired leadership competencies and become advocates for creative new ideas. Another key competency would be empathy with customers. All organisations would deliver value; the managers, leaders and members would become aware of what products the organisations offer and how they compare with the wider market thereby being aware of competition and coping strategies. The members, leaders and managers would be able to understand their roles better, develop clear strategies and objectives and relate better with other people and organisations. Some of the expected specific benefits by the MBO include · Improved leadership and management. · Improved competence (especially required in such a liberalized economy). · Ability to analyze their current situation and develop a vision. · Have developed strategies of how to become viable and vital. · Have enhanced ability to become more beneficial to members. · Increased membership. · Improved business. Budget 650.000 SEK (2009)

Strengthening the partner organisation and capacity building The project will contribute to the strengthening of UCA and its human resources capacity by enabling it to retain competent and qualified staff and facilitate them to perform the project implementation and the related work. UCA’s Microfinance Unit (MFU) whose constitution and capacity building started during CECFIS Project Phase I shall be responsible for implementing this project. Budget 2 MSEK (2009)

Uganda cooperative Alliance Ltd (UCA) is the umbrella body of cooperatives in Uganda. To date there are 540 members, comprising of primary and secondary cooperatives (unions), 380 of which are savings and credit cooperatives. SACCO’s mentored by UCA have 103.565 members with a share capital of 4.324,23 Mill. Shs , savings of 6.684,51 Mill. Shs and outstanding loans of10.158,14 Mill. Shs (1 € = 2542 Shs). The project "setting up a micro-insurance project" aims at the introduction of a micro insurance product that will be implemented by Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCO's). The overall objective of the project is to mitigate the risks faced by the SACCO members through introduction of appropriate insurance covers managed by the SACCOs themselves. Specific objectives • To introduce micro insurance product, a new financial product to the members of the two SACCOs through sensitisation and training. • To design an effective system that will enable SACCOs implement micro-insurance product in their areas. • To equip the SACCO staff members with all the required knowledge and skills to manage the administration of micro insurance product. Main Activities The following activities will be undertaken; • Development of a business plan • Development and execution of a communication strategy • Development of the insurable products • Development of procedures and audits • Preparation of start up/ procedural manual • Institutional structuring /tasks/responsibilities • Developing a training programme for the staff, committee members and the general membership • Sorting out legal procedures • Organising re-insurance facilities with other insurance companies • Starting up a micro insurance sales programme • Executing a pilot programme • Evaluating a pilot programme