Agro Business Development Services Programme

Agro Business Development Services Programme

Hive Colab Agro Business Development Services Program in junction with Goal Uganda was designed to support small holder farmers with Business Development services and micro small medium enterprises that deal in agriculture. The partners on board for this program were Centenary Bank.

The program was developed with an aim of providing capacity building and business development expertise to 1260 SMEs in Northern Uganda and 480 VSLAs to equip them with the necessary expertise and knowledge that can help them grow into viable agro-businesses that can compete nationally and internationally.

The program was also developed to assist the small holder farmers with financial opportunities and loans. Hive Colab partnered with Centenary Bank to provide small holder farmers with the opportunity to learn more about savings and also investment. With the vision of creating impact and also sustainability for the small holder farmers and SMEs it is important they adopt a savings and investment culture as well to be able to develop their businesses.

The SMEs and VSLAs went through a vigorous program in which we used a lecture method using physical classes, brain storming, group discussions, focus group discussions, coaching & mentorship on topics including financial literacy, business model canvas and entrepreneurship.

In the program, we also adopted the style of Training of Trainers (ToT) and this is the use of key experts to train ambassadors of the program in the field during and after the completion of the program to continue providing knowledge directly in the communities but also to observe the effectiveness of the training and impact of it to the communities.

The ToTs were also able to communicate to the business owners in their local languages for the effectiveness of the program education. During the program we were able to use effective means of mobilization through event marketing, radio stations, Television adverts, press releases and talk shows. We also did a deep dive analysis on all of the businesses to identify the needs of the business and this enabled which areas of need does each business have and this allowed us to acquire experts to provide expertise according to their needs.

In this regard, we work with local government and Uganda Registration Services Bureau to get them to the standards that can enable them to benefit from the availability of the financial opportunities.

Partners

Bopinc