Poverty eradication and wealth creation: The role and challenges of savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs) in Uganda

Abstract

In the last decades, Uganda has been aligning her poverty reduction and wealth creation strategies with the global goals – in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and, of late, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These have been mainstreamed through the annual plans, the National Development Plan (NDP) and Vision 2040. Through these, Uganda has planned to be a modernised economy by 2040. Many poverty Many poverty reduction and wealth creation programmes have been in place, especially under the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government, but despite a significant reduction of the incidence of poverty from 31.1  per31.1%  per cent in 2006, 19.7% per cent in 2013 to 21.4%  per cent (8 million) in 2018, the poverty figure is still a cause of great concern to many politicians and policymakers. It is common knowledge that Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) have been used by the NRM government since its launch in 2005 to fight poverty. Through interviews with 19 respondents and document analysis, it has been established that SACCOs have contributed to poverty and wealth creation in many ways: Through the provision of employment, imparting skills to the members, and enabling access to loans, among others, all of which have helped households to improve their welfare. However, it has also been established that these SACCOs have faced several challenges, emanating from governance and management and other environmental issues. It is recommended that, with the renewed commitment of the government to increase the scope of SACCOs to fight poverty and create wealth, these challenges be addressed and government also show more commitment to ensure that SACCOs’ activities are explicitly discussed and included in annual budgets.   Key words: SACCOs, poverty, wealth, development, Uganda.