The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) has closed its digital inclusion programme in Uganda, highlighting both the scale of digital onboarding achieved and the much smaller number of people who went on to use the services actively.
Officials, partners and regulators gathered at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel to mark the conclusion of Leaving No One Behind in the Digital Era, also branded Connect Rural Uganda, a programme that sought to expand access to digital and financial services among underserved communities.
According to an August 2026 UNCDF draft report and close-out presentation, the programme registered more than 3.4 million users, but only about one million were classified as active users, representing roughly 29 per cent of those registered.
UNCDF said the experience demonstrated that technology alone was not enough to guarantee sustained digital adoption.
What the programme aimed to achieve:
The programme initially targeted at least one million people, with women expected to account for at least 40 per cent and young people 60 per cent of beneficiaries.
By the end of the programme, more than 3.4 million users had been registered, including more than one million active users and over 500,000 women who were actively participating.
UNCDF said the programme supported digital solutions in agriculture, health, education, digital public services and finance. Its target groups included women, young people, refugees, smallholder farmers and small businesses.
The programme also recruited more than 21,000 digital agents and community enablers to support onboarding and the use of digital services.
However, phone ownership, internet connectivity, digital skills, the cost of devices and the availability of local support continued to determine whether people could use the services beyond initial registration.
UNCDF said onboarding and field support had demonstrated commercial value but remained too expensive to sustain solely from revenue generated through small loans.
One agent’s journey:
At the close-out event, Ensibuuko presented the experience of Drichiro, a Digital Community Entrepreneur who helped savings groups digitise their records through the company’s Chomoka application.
Drichiro was also a member of the Oraku Women’s Community Savings Group.
According to Ensibuuko, the group received an initial UGX 3.5 million loan, with support from Uganda Development Bank, which it invested in collective farming. A second group loan of UGX 6.7 million followed.
Drichiro later obtained an individual loan and invested in poultry and livestock.
Ensibuuko said the skills she acquired as a digital agent, including saving, budgeting and financial management, were as important to her progress as access to credit.
Four lending models tested:
The August report reviews four lending models that sought to digitise informal financial records, use the resulting data to assess credit risk, align repayment schedules with borrowers’ cash flows and connect borrowers to lenders.
Guarantees were used to absorb some of the initial losses, while cooperatives, savings groups and digital agents played roles in identification, onboarding and loan collection.
Ensibuuko:
Ensibuuko applied the model to village savings and loan associations (VSLAs).
The report says more than 11,000 VSLAs have been digitised, although only about 1,000 currently have access to credit, reaching roughly 25,000 people.
Ensibuuko reported repayment rates of above 97 per cent on loans priced at 15 per cent a year.
An initial Uganda Development Bank facility of UGX 500 million, listed as $136,240 in one section of the report, later increased to about UGX 1.5 billion, equivalent to approximately $409,000.
UNCDF also reported that monthly VSLA lending rates declined from about 5 per cent to 3.5 per cent as monitoring improved.
UGAFODE:
UGAFODE Microfinance Limited used a first-loss portfolio guarantee from UNCDF to provide group loans to refugee and host-community businesses around the Nakivale settlement.
The report records 790 borrowers who received more than $100,000 in loans, comprising 497 refugees and 293 members of host communities.
The institution reduced documentation requirements and opened a branch in Rubondo. However, taxpayer identification requirements and credit-bureau rules remained challenging where group documentation could not be verified.
UGAFODE said Opportunity Bank and EBO SACCO later introduced similar products.
Emata:
Emata used farm and delivery data from cooperatives, agribusinesses and processors to assess seasonal loans, typically ranging from $15 to $400, with a reported median of about $200.
UNCDF said 73 cooperatives used the management system, while 36,000 farmers were registered.
More than 3,000 borrowers received approximately 10,000 loans valued at $3.2 million.
A separate figure in the report records more than 3,000 loans disbursed at a total value of about UGX 2.25 billion, equivalent to roughly $620,000.
Data protection emerges as a key lesson:
Uganda’s Personal Data Protection Office used the event to emphasise that digital growth must be matched by public confidence in how personal information is collected, used and protected.
The office called on participating firms to ensure lawful and transparent processing of personal data, maintain accurate records, provide strong security measures and offer accessible mechanisms for redress.
It said these safeguards are particularly important for rural communities and people with limited digital literacy.
Entities already registered with the office were also encouraged to move beyond registration and embed data protection safeguards into every stage of their digital services.
What comes next?
UNCDF recommends that future programmes use grants or performance-based support to finance initial onboarding and market testing before attracting concessional or commercial capital once lending portfolios demonstrate sustainable results.
The report also calls for clearer identification and reporting requirements for group borrowers, as well as stronger due diligence of partners involved in collecting personal data and loan repayments.
The next major programme named by UNCDF is FinWise, its 2025–2028 initiative focused on last-mile financial health and business finance.
Its success will ultimately depend on whether it can convert digital registration into sustained use, publish comparable portfolio performance figures, strengthen accountability around borrower data and avoid repeating the implementation and partner challenges identified during the six-year programme.
The experience of Leaving No One Behind in the Digital Era suggests that Uganda’s digital inclusion challenge is no longer simply about connecting people to technology. It is about ensuring that people have the devices, skills, trust, support and affordable services needed to keep using it.
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