According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2004, over one in three adult Ugandans is engaged in some form of entrepreneurial activity, resulting in Uganda being the second most entrepreneurial country in the world. However, the study also showed that the rate of failure of businesses in Uganda was also one of the highest in the world, citing that for every business that was started nearly one other closed. Mostly, these are micro and small enterprises (MSEs).
The major causes of failure are a lack of entrepreneurial skills, lack of access to affordable business development services, limited access to finance, lack of adequate technical and management support services, limited access to information on market opportunities and limited access to financing - as well as the high cost of financing.
The projects, based at the district but with a coverage of 4 to 5 surrounding districts each, identify micro and small enterprises in their various regions of operations, provide business development services (BDS) and aim at strengthening the capacity of the MSEs in order to improve their competitiveness and income generation capacities. The projects also enhance the MSEs’ operational efficiency, assist development of market linkages and facilitate the MSEs to access credit from microfinance institutions (MFIs) in order to enhance employment creation, competitiveness and income generation.
Development objectives
The objective of the projects is to enhance the performance of MSEs through the improvement of operational efficiency, strengthening of market linkages, and facilitation of MSEs to access financing in order to enhance employment creation, competitiveness and income generation.
Key activities & expected results
The projects aim at delivering BDS to 1300 MSEs per annum for two years. The project selects or works with a number of SMEs which receive enterprise development skills and BDS, such as marketing, packaging, quality control, business proposal writing and many others. Those whose capacities are built are then linked to sustainable market chains and linked to MFIs to access credit. These businesses can then expand and prosper.
Implementation phase
The four projects running for two years have registered successes in their work with the MSEs.
