By Mulengera Reporters
Women remain significantly underrepresented among beneficiaries of Uganda’s Agricultural Credit Facility (ACF), accounting for just 19% of individual beneficiaries, compared with 71% for men, according to a National Planning Authority (NPA) independent evaluation.
The gender disparity is one of the key inclusiveness concerns identified in the evaluation of the facility, which is managed by the Bank of Uganda (BoU) through participating financial institutions.
The evaluation, commissioned by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and released in May 2026, shows that the facility is yet to achieve equitable access between women and men despite agriculture being a major source of livelihood for both.
The figures show that male individuals accounted for 71% of ACF beneficiaries, while female individuals accounted for only 19%.
Companies and groups made up the remaining 10%, according to the evaluation’s gender distribution data.
The disparity is also reflected in the financing accessed by individual borrowers.
The evaluation reports an average loan size of about Shs1.492 billion for companies and groups, compared with Shs50 million for male individuals and Shs21 million for female individuals.
The figures underline not only a participation gap but also a financing gap between women and men.
On average, a male individual borrower accessed more than twice the amount received by a female individual borrower — Shs50 million compared with Shs21 million.
The NPA says the limited participation of women undermines the broader development impact of the facility, particularly because greater access to agricultural finance among women is associated with household welfare, food security and community resilience.
The evaluation therefore calls for gender considerations to be incorporated into the design and implementation of the ACF rather than treating gender inclusion as a secondary outcome.
Among the proposed measures are tailored loan products for women, targeted financial literacy programmes and incentives for participating financial institutions that increase lending to female borrowers.
The NPA also recommends institutionalising gender-disaggregated reporting so that the performance of the facility can be measured more clearly in terms of how much financing reaches women and men.
The evaluation proposes a 50% gender distribution threshold as the minimum benchmark for the ACF.
That target is intended to broadly reflect Uganda’s population structure, where women account for about 51% of the population, while also recognising their central role in the agricultural sector.
The report argues that reaching the 50% threshold would represent a significant shift from the current distribution, in which female individual borrowers account for less than one-fifth of beneficiaries.
The recommendations place a responsibility on both the ACF and its participating financial institutions to address barriers that may be preventing women from accessing agricultural credit.
Rather than relying solely on existing lending channels, the NPA says the facility should deliberately design financing approaches that respond to the needs and circumstances of women borrowers.
The evaluation links stronger gender inclusion to Uganda’s wider development objectives, arguing that expanding women’s access to financial services would promote more equitable and sustainable growth.
For the ACF, the challenge is therefore not simply to increase the amount of money lent to agriculture, but to ensure that the facility’s benefits are shared more evenly between women and men.
The NPA says achieving the proposed 50% minimum gender threshold should become a measurable indicator of progress as Uganda uses development financing mechanisms to advance the objectives of Vision 2040. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
