Liberation Community Finance (LCF), a microfinance institution (MFI) in Uganda, has several new initiatives:
– a partnership with Uganda’s Agricultural Business Initiative (aBi) to develop environmentally sensitive financial products for LCF’s clients who farm crops such as maize and pumpkins;
– a Women Commander model through which women who borrow in groups can earn commissions for monitoring loan repayments and recruiting additional borrowers; and
– a partnership with Uganda’s Ecostoves through which LCF is financing cookstoves for families to improve their indoor air quality and reduce the cutting down of trees.
The MFI, which recently opened its fifth branch location in the city of Mityana, has its head office is in Natete and other branches in Kakira, Kiwoko and Nakifuma. LCF lends for purposes such as agriculture, trading, tuition and vehicles to 4,200 members, about three quarters of whom are farmers, 70 percent are female and half are youth. The institution also seeks to serve the needs of people with disabilities and refugees.
Agricultural Business Initiative, which promotes “climate-smart” agriculture, reports having trained 93,000 farmers, engaged 19,000 farmers in collective marketing and created 8,300 jobs during 2022.
LCF lends to both groups and individuals, while requiring the maintenance of minimum savings levels. The MFI also offers training, crop storage, agency banking, bill payments, money transfers, mobile banking and access to automated teller machines (ATMs). It was founded in 2017 and reports profits of UGX 36 million (USD 10,000) for the first six months of 2023 on total assets of UGX 1.3 billion (USD 340,000).
Sources and Additional Resources
Direct contact with LCF
Agricultural Business Initiative homepage
https://www.abi.co.ug/
Ecostoves homepage
https://ecostoves.org/
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