Graduates as Producers, Not Job Seekers. Here is what the proposed Ugandan Graduates SACCO sets out to do.
Every year Uganda's universities and tertiary institutions release hundreds of thousands of graduates. For too many, graduation day begins a long search for work rather than a productive life.
The Ugandan Graduates Savings and Credit Cooperative Society Limited (UG-SACCO) is proposed as one national, professionally run, digitally enabled and member-owned SACCO built around graduates.
What UG-SACCO will do
- Mobilise graduates' own savings and share capital.
- Provide affordable productive credit, secured by savings, group guarantees and financed assets rather than land titles.
- Serve as the single accountable channel, the One Graduate Window, for Government programmes that target graduates.
- Organise members into Graduate Enterprise Clusters in the priority sectors of NDP IV.
- Walk with every borrowing member from idea to enterprise to employer, through training and mentorship.
The five-year targets
The proposal targets 250,000 members, 40,000 graduate-led enterprises and about 100,000 direct and indirect jobs by Year 5. These are targets, not results, and progress will be reported publicly every quarter.
Owned by members
UG-SACCO is not a Government institution. It is a cooperative owned and democratically controlled by its members on the basis of one member, one vote, and it is strictly politically neutral.