UGANDA | GERMANY | AGRIBUSINESS | COOPERATION

The Deutsche Gesellschaft for Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), through the Employment and Skills for Development in Africa Program (E4D) and the Agribusiness Development Centre (ADC), have joined forces to support 200 agribusinesses in Uganda next year.

The cooperation is within the Enhancing the Competitiveness of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (ECOS) Project, where both GIZ and ADC shall ensure increased access to finance, investments, and financial readiness. Market developments, innovations, and upgrading quality management systems for the selected enterprises.

Donald Agaba, the head of the program at E4D, said the cooperation between the two parties seeks to address various challenges affecting agribusinesses, including lack of proper governance, and structures, high financial exposure to risk management expertise, poor quality of products, and poor quality of tools, among others.

“Through this partnership, we shall also conduct a business acceleration program targeting 100 small and medium agribusinesses, of which 40% shall be women-led, by providing training, business mentorship, and coaching to trigger linkages for at least 50% of them, thus creating 50 jobs by the end of 2023,” he added in a media advert.

Agaba added: “Offering price risk management training, supporting financial management, and carrying out cash flow projects for 100 small and medium agribusinesses will also take place, where two price risk management courses and exposure to the use of simple financial packages and digital tools to improve efficiency shall be conducted,”.

He also mentioned that this project should, in addition, incentivize participation and commitment to change by equipping at least 40 enterprises with simple financial packages that can innovatively improve their record-keeping and financial packages and digital tools to improve efficiency.

The ECOS Project was launched in April 2022 with the major objective of increasing the competitiveness of 1,000 Ugandan SMEs employing a total of 22,000 people. GIZ implements this project through a consortium of firms (GOPA) serving as worldwide consultants, in agriculture and finance (AFC).