IFAD in Uganda

Throughout more than 22 years of partnership, IFAD and Uganda have been strongly committed to reducing rural poverty. IFAD has contributed a total of US$193.5 million to finance projects and programmes in Uganda.

Loans from IFAD have helped finance 12 projects, five of them ongoing. Projects and programmes are designed to alleviate poverty and assist development. The most recent is the Rural Finance Services Programme, which is national in scope and seeks to create a reliable and extensive rural finance system that will offer rural people opportunities for higher and more stable incomes.

IFAD’s strategy in Uganda
IFAD’s investments in Uganda have focused on two main areas:

• improving the production of traditional export crops (notably coffee and cotton) and import-substituting commodities (cereals/grains and oilseed crops)
• supporting the emergence of producer and community associations, with particular attention to women’s groups

This dual approach has enabled farmers, rural communities and women to increase the quantity and quality of their produce. It has also helped encourage farmers to shift away from subsistence production.

To respond to the government’s Plan for Modernization of Agriculture, IFAD recently revised its country strategic opportunities paper (COSOP). The COSOP has identified the following major areas of opportunity for IFAD in the country:

• promoting strong civil-society organizations and community-based development
• building the capacity of decentralized systems to identify and respond to constraints on rural poverty reduction
• increasing the access of smallholder farmers to capital and technology
• mainstreaming gender issues and HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation practices into rural development activities
• improving the capacity of households and communities to increase their integration into markets

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Ongoing IFAD operations Community Agricultural Infrastructure Improvement Programme District Livelihoods Support Programme Rural Financial Services Programme (national) National Agricultural Advisory Services Programme Area-Based Agricultural Modernization Programme Vegetable Oil Development Project View closed operations map... Statistics Projects: 12 Total cost: US$454.9 million Total loan amount: US$193.5 million Directly benefiting: 2,442,150 households Contact information Ms Marian Bradley Country programme manager IFAD Via Paolo Di Dono, 44 00142 Rome, Italy Tel: +39 0654592326 Fax: +39 0654593326 m.bradley@ifad.org Mr Pontian Muhwezi IFAD Policy Programme Coordinator c/o UNDP Kampala 15B Clement Hill Road P.O. Box 7184 Kampala Tel:  +256 41 233440/1/2/5 p.muhwezi@ifad.org