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DEVELOPMENT-UGANDA: Little by Little, Week by Week
By Evelyn Kiapi Matsamura
MASAKA, Southern Uganda, Mar 29 (IPS) - Uganda is one of Africa's rare
success stories in the fight against AIDS, having reduced its HIV prevalence
from 30 per cent in the early 1990s to six per cent today. However, the
pandemic has still taken a toll on the East African country, causing almost
two million children to be orphaned.
About 1.7 million of Uganda's 2.2 million orphans have lost parents to
AIDS-related diseases, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on
HIV/AIDS.
Child-headed households are now a common sight in the country, especially
in rural areas, and they are far more vulnerable to poverty that those
households which have the benefit of adult supervision. Figures released by
the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development indicate that children
constitute 62 per cent of persons who live in absolute poverty in Uganda.
Concern about the plight of AIDS orphans led to the creation of the
Uganda Women's Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO).
This initiative, which got underway a decade ago, was spearheaded by
first lady Janet Museveni. It aims to improve the lives of orphans by having
local communities meet their needs. In part, this is done by offering
small-scale loans to families that care for orphans.
Forty-seven-year-old Harriet Kiiza is one of those who have managed to
take advantage of this microcredit scheme.
With little education and no means of generating an income, Kiiza and her
six children initially lived from hand-to-mouth after the death of her
husband in 1993. These days, she makes pancakes and doughnuts which are sold
to shops and school canteens - all with the help of a loan from UWESO.
Kiiza has also managed to buy a plot of land. And, she takes care of no
less than 12 children with the money earned from her business. Six of these
children are the orphans of relatives, or of community members.
"It is here that we learnt the culture of saving money," says Kiiza. She
is now the treasurer of a group of microcredit recipients who meet every
Thursday in Masaka to make loan repayments, balance their books - and
deposit savings. UWESO clients are required to make regular savings
contributions; and, according to the organisation's website, they have
managed to save just over 90,000 dollars to date.
Like Kiiza, some clients cook to generate an income. Others take out
loans to sell charcoal, set up market stalls, farm poultry - or create other
small businesses. In April 2004, the microcredit scheme was extended to
provide applicants with loans for agricultural enterprises such as livestock
and crop farming.
A network of volunteers stretching from villages to the national level
helps manage the loan programme. This is achieved with support from the
International Fund for Agricultural Development, a United Nations agency
which focuses on rural poverty in developing nations, and the Belgian
Survival Fund - set up in 1983 by Belgium's parliament.
"UWESO is for women, but we also accept 10 per cent of men to join us.
However when it comes to leadership, all are women," says Eva Nangendo,
UWESO's portfolio officer. To qualify for loans, applicants have to be
caring for at least four orphans.
"When I joined the project, we were trained and told that a woman cannot
just sit idle and do nothing all day. We had to work and not wait for your
husband to take care of you," says 35-year-old Juliet Nassanga Kabiito who
supports six children, four of them orphans.
"At first we did not know how to run the project. Today, we do. We do our
own accounting, record keeping and even banking the savings," she adds.
"Many women fear taking loans, but it's one of the best ways to develop. If
they don't want to borrow, at least let them learn how to save."
The loans range in size from about 30 dollars to almost 1,760 dollars.
Recipients are obliged to go for what UWESO terms "pre-loan disbursement
training" to equip them with commercial and management skills. The
organisation claims it has issued loans worth almost 11.5 million dollars to
more than 40,000 clients since 1996.
But, it's not all a tale of tidy profits and improved self-confidence
amongst the women.
"In our businesses, sometimes you make some money, but sometimes you do
not," says 40-year-old Aisha Nakalembe, chairperson of one of the groups
that meet weekly to tend to finances. "If you are paying a loan, you have to
be consistent - but sometimes the business is not consistent. Yet, you have
to keep that record of paying well."
Even if a business is doing nicely, UWESO clients could find their
ability to repay loans and save drained by bouts of illness in the family.
In a country where many children may have contracted HIV from their parents
before becoming orphans - or where microcredit clients themselves are
HIV-positive - the constant spectre of disease clearly poses a challenge to
the sustainability of microcredit schemes.
"The greatest problem comes when the children fall sick. It's also
difficult to pay school fees," observes Nakalembe who has eight children,
four of them orphans.
With these pressures in mind, UWESO has created a school fees loan scheme
that assists clients to educate the children in their care, while continuing
to meet their repayment and savings obligations.
The organisation says it also encourages clients to make contributions to
the global insurance giant, American Insurance Group, to ensure money owed
to UWESO is repaid in the event that a microcredit recipient dies.
In a bid to highlight the capacity of small-scale loans to improve the
lives of those in the world's poorest communities, the United Nations has
designated 2005 the 'International Year of Microcredit'.
Events being organised to mark this fact include the Global
Microentrepreneurship Awards, to be held in 34 countries this year. Come
November, a ceremony will take place in each of these states to highlight
the achievements of those who are using microcredit to make a small, but
important contribution to reducing global poverty.
(END/2005)
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