By Mulengera Reporters
The Central region has suffered a sharp decline in its share of financing under the Agricultural Credit Facility (ACF), while Western Uganda continues to command the largest portion of loans and the Eastern region remains at the bottom of the programme’s regional reach, according to a new evaluation.
The findings are contained in the Independent Evaluation of the Agricultural Credit Facility conducted by the National Planning Authority (NPA) and released in May 2026.
The report shows that although ACF’s Block Allocation programme has become more geographically spread in terms of the number of projects, the distribution of actual loan money remains heavily concentrated in Western Uganda.
The Central region has experienced the most striking deterioration in the value of financing.
Its share of Block Allocation loan value fell from 20% in March 2021 to just 6% by March 2024, despite the region’s economic importance.
The NPA says the sharp decline could reflect reduced engagement by Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) or falling interest among potential borrowers, and calls for a reassessment of strategies aimed at maintaining the region’s relevance and uptake.
Western Uganda, meanwhile, has retained its grip on ACF financing.
The region accounted for 67% of total Block Allocation loan value in March 2021 and still held 66% by March 2024.
Although its share declined slightly, the West remained overwhelmingly dominant, with beneficiaries consistently accessing higher-value loans than their counterparts in other parts of the country.
The figures suggest that the regional distribution of ACF money remains far more concentrated than the distribution of projects.
Northern Uganda makes major gains
While the Central region has been losing ground and the West remains dominant, Northern Uganda has emerged as the biggest beneficiary of efforts to expand the geographical reach of ACF.
The North’s share of Block Allocation projects jumped from only 6% in March 2021 to 25% by June 2024.
The NPA describes the increase as evidence of progress in extending agricultural credit to historically underserved areas.
Over the same period, Western Uganda’s share of projects fell from 68% to 45%, indicating a gradual shift away from its earlier dominance in terms of the number of funded projects.
The Central region’s project share also fluctuated. It declined from 20% in 2021 to 13% by June 2023, before recovering to 22% by June 2024.
But the improvement in project numbers has not translated into a corresponding recovery in the value of financing.
That distinction is crucial: a region can record more funded projects while still receiving a relatively small share of the money.
Eastern Uganda remains the weakest link
Eastern Uganda presents an even more persistent challenge.
Despite efforts to broaden ACF’s geographical coverage, the region’s share of Block Allocation projects remained below 10%, reaching only 8% by June 2024.
The NPA attributes the low uptake to possible challenges in mobilisation, awareness and demand for ACF financing.
The evaluation recommends targeted engagement, awareness creation and capacity-building interventions to stimulate demand and improve access in the region.
The continued weakness in the East means that, despite the overall improvement in geographical distribution, ACF has yet to achieve balanced participation across the country.
More projects do not necessarily mean more money
The regional trends expose an important feature of ACF’s lending model.
The programme is gradually reaching more areas, but the value of financing remains concentrated in regions where borrowers and financial institutions are accessing larger loans.
This creates a gap between geographical inclusion and financial inclusion.
Northern Uganda’s rise from 6% to 25% of projects is significant, but the continued dominance of Western Uganda in loan value suggests that the expansion of project numbers has not yet produced an equivalent redistribution of financial resources.
For the Central region, the decline is particularly concerning because its falling share of loan value comes despite a recovery in its share of projects by June 2024.
The NPA therefore points to the need for ACF and PFIs to examine what is discouraging borrowers and financial institutions from pursuing larger agricultural investments in the region.
A programme with a national transformation mandate
The regional disparities matter because ACF is more than a conventional lending programme.
Established in 2009, the government initiative was created to promote the commercialization and modernization of agriculture by providing short-, medium- and long-term financing for agricultural production, mechanisation, agro-processing, grain trade and related activities on favourable terms compared with conventional loans.
The facility is managed by the Bank of Uganda in partnership with Participating Financial Institutions.
It is also a key Development Financing Mechanism under Uganda Vision 2040 and the Fourth National Development Plan, which place agricultural modernization and commercialization at the centre of the country’s economic transformation agenda.
Over the past 15 years, ACF has effectively doubled the volume of credit available to agricultural borrowers. PFIs have cumulatively lent about UGX485 billion, an annual average of approximately UGX32 billion, alongside UGX495.6 billion from government.
The scale of these resources makes the regional distribution of financing a critical issue.
The NPA findings show a programme making progress in extending its footprint, particularly in Northern Uganda, but still struggling to break the concentration of high-value lending in the West.
For the Central region, the sharp decline in loan value raises questions about borrower demand and PFI engagement. For the East, persistently low participation points to continuing barriers to access.
And for the West, its continued dominance demonstrates that geographical rebalancing has yet to translate into a significant redistribution of the money itself.
The NPA evaluation therefore leaves ACF with a clear regional challenge: expanding the number of projects is not enough if large differences remain in the amount of financing reaching farmers and agricultural enterprises across the country.
Unless the facility can translate wider geographical outreach into more balanced flows of capital, Uganda’s agricultural financing programme risks reaching more regions without financing them equally. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
