US, Sweden boost health sector with sh18b loan

By David Lumu
 
A Sh18.6b loan deal tailored towards boosting the affordability of health care by average Ugandans has been penned by the U.S. Mission in Uganda, the Embassy of Sweden and ECOBANK Uganda Limited.

According to a release by the US Embassy, the seven year $ 7.5m second joint loan agreement will: “significantly expand access to credit for private health sector in Uganda and enable ordinary citizens to access affordable and high-quality medical care.”

The agreement between the three actors was signed in Kampala by Leslie Reed, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Uganda Mission Director, Urban Andersson, the Swedish Ambassador to Uganda, and Michael Monari, the Managing Director of ECOBANK Uganda.

The project aims to issue 15 percent of the loans to women-managed private health care providers.

Partial loan guarantee agreements encourage private lenders to extend financing to underserved borrowers in order to achieve economic development objectives, often through co-guarantees with partners like Sweden.

“The United States and Sweden share and support Uganda’s ambitions to reach middle income level status and acknowledge the key importance of the private sector to reach this goal. Hence, we are very pleased to announce our support for the second joint Loan Portfolio Guarantee Agreement with ECOBANK Uganda, which we believe will serve to further increase private capital investment in the health sector,” Urban Andersson said.  

On his part, Reed said that: “The Loan Portfolio Guarantee Agreement is a very successful model for Uganda. One of our first guarantees enabled an entrepreneur to receive a loan large enough to expand his business and as a result, his profits increased from $6,500 to $22,000 annually and he was able to hire an additional 40 workers.”
In the first phase of the loan, US and Sweden partnered with Centenary Bank in October 2012.
 
 


US ambassador Scott De Lisi