Ugandan young innovators interested in Agriculture financing solutions especially for smallholder farmers must do their homework first to make their innovations bankable and relevant. “We see that some of the innovators are not actually enough acquainted with the target group that they are innovating for. So sometimes, although they haven’t done the research simply that they come up with the idea and we tell them that so and so is already doing this and they didn’t know. Or they assume that farmers will have a specific behavior which actually they don’t.” Said, Lucrezia Biteete – Managing Director, Laboremu Uganda. “We bring these findings in the room such that people that are innovating are able to see the extent of the problem, the needs that are available within the agricultural space and start thinking around what sort of innovations that can tackle those problems. Now, when those are developed, we take them to the farmers.” Said, Nathan Were – Consultative Group To Assist The Poor – CGAP.

And to facilitate this process, the 4 million dollar kit for capacity building in financial solution innovations with a bias in agriculture has been ruled out by the United Nations Capital Development Fund. “This year, we have a quite wide portfolio of projects that goes beyond agriculture but I would say majority of the projects we have is in digital financing in agriculture and a total budget for this year is around 4.8 million dollars.” Said, Bram Peters – Country Technical Specialist – UNCDF. These interventions are focused on providing alternative sources of funding for 90% and banked smallholder farmers in Uganda normally shunned by traditional banks due to the lack of collateral. The sector employs over 70% of the population.