FINANCIAL INCLUSION IN RURAL AREAS: ESTABLISHMENT OF 2500 COMMUNITY SAVINGS AND CREDIT GROUPS (CSCGS) IN THE EASTERN REGION OF UGANDA

Abstract

South Eastern Private Sector Promotion Enterprise Limited was contract by the Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Finance Planning and Economic Development to implement the Project for Financial Inclusion in Rural Areas, a project that was designed and funded by the International Funds for Agricultural Development. The project was designed to address the challenge of limited access to rural finance services. The project focused on, on financial inclusion as one of the key pillars of Uganda's efforts to eradicate poverty. The project sought to sustainably increase access to and use of financial services by the rural population. The project targeted to meet not less than 750,000 rural poor men, women, youth, and vulnerable groups who are financially excluded. In the beginning, a baseline survey was conducted on 300 Households to establish a benchmark under which project changes would be measured during the End line survey. It was on this basis that, the consortium conducted an End line to measure the likely impact the project had created among the beneficiaries. The findings of the survey indicated that the majority of the household heads did not complete primary school. Thus, household heads lack form education. Whereas at baseline 57% had grass-grass-thatched at the end-line, this had reduced to 48%. This implies that there was increased usage of iron sheets in roof houses. The use of boreholes as a source of drinking water for the household increased from 12% at baseline to 55%, followed by the use of protected well/springs. Findings further revealed that land was largely owned by men (79%