MICRO FINANCE UNIT
The Micro Finance Unit (MFU) is UCA’s department responsible for handling its operations targeting and benefiting financial services co-operative societies. The MFU provides strategic support services to the Financial Co-operatives sector, which include: Savings and Credit Co-operative Societies (SACCOs), and SACCO Unions.
MFU’s General and Specific Objectives
The general objective:
To build Sustainable SACCOs that providing easily accessible and affordable financial services to underserved communities, and to put in place institutional arrangements for sustainable provision of support services to financial services co-operatives.
The main components of UCA’s support for Financial Services Co-operatives
UCA’s financial services co-operatives support methodology involves mobilizing rural communities to start, use, benefit from and control their own financial institutions on a self-help basis. Through the same methodology, SACCOs that were not formed on the same foundation are guided to transform themselves and adopt UCA’s methodology so that they too can provide better financial services to their members. Under this methodology, UCA’s MFU specifically undertakes the following interventions in financial services co-operatives:
• Assisting SACCOs establish and commence their business operations i.e. mobilising membership, share capital, savings, lending and recovering their loans.
• Building the technical capacities of SACCOs through training members in how to own, use, control and benefit from their SACCOs, training leaders and management staff in leading and managing their SACCOs operations, and developing and providing them with SACCO governance, management, operating and reporting systems.
• Developed sound SACCO performance standards which all SACCOs must adopt and comply with and also developed the mechanism for institutionalizing, applying and complying with the sound SACCO performance standards.
• Carrying out internal audit and supervision of SACCOs, do job train and mentorship to ensure that SACCO leaders, management staff and general membership operate SACCO business efficiently, effectively and in the best interests of their members.
• Linking SACCOs to other types of cooperatives to enable them improve their business prospects; benefit other co-operatives as well optimising co-operative benefits to co-operators.
• Provide Support services to SACCOs and SACCO Unions on issues of: good collaboration, Partnerships, linkages and mergers or acquisitions, and their business relation.
• Collaborate with other Cooperative Organization which include: Association of Financial Cooperative professionals of Uganda (AFCPU), Uganda Cooperative Savings and Credit Union (UCSCU), Uganda Central Cooperative Financial Services (UCCFS), and other promoters of Microfinance services that include: Association of Microfinance Institutions of Uganda (AMFIU) to ensure SACCO Sector development in Uganda.
• Advocating and lobbying for SACCOs as well as representing them at different fora on matters of interest to the SACCO sector.