EBO SACCO was founded in 1995 and provides financial services to farmers and entrepreneurs in rural areas. Its aim is to offer them opportunities and help improve their living conditions, with attention to the environment.

Its services include savings accounts, loans and insurance products. The cooperative has also developed services specifically targeted at women and young people.

An ecosystem that enables growth

You may know the saying “It takes a village to raise a child.” The same is true for the growth of a cooperative.

Over the years, EBO SACCO received support from various organisations, including two Belgian ones: BRS and Trias. BRS trained EBO SACCO’s management team in the use of management tools and audit processes and helped develop systems for risk management and cybersecurity. Trias also contributed to strengthening the cooperative’s management systems and capacity.

With this strong foundation, EBO SACCO was ready for a new phase of growth. To achieve this, the cooperative needed additional credit lines, but the interest rates offered were consistently too high. At that point, BRS introduced them to Alterfin.

This introduction led to a co-investment by BRS and Alterfin: partly with Alterfin’s own funds and partly with BRS funds, for which Alterfin provides investment advice. As a result, EBO SACCO received its first loan of 2 million dollars in 2024 under more favourable conditions.

A catalytic loan

What was the impact of this loan? To understand this, Alterfin conducted an impact study, as we do every year with several partners. Through this study, we examine how our financing makes a difference for partners and how it helps them increase their impact on clients. This makes our approach to impact management unique: we start from human outcomes.

The study helps us determine whether our financing:

• Plays a pioneering role – when we are the first international lender to a partner.
• Has a catalytic effect – when our financing builds trust, attracts additional investments, or enables the partner to grow enough to expand its impact.
• Is aligned with the partner – when the loan conditions match the partner’s needs and when the support provided – technical or otherwise – genuinely helps the partner move forward with a clear focus on impact.

According to EBO SACCO, Alterfin fulfilled all three roles. The loan enabled immediate growth. CEO Joseph Mugume explains:

“Alterfin’s funds contributed to the recovery of our activities after COVID and made it possible for new members to receive start-up capital.”

Alterfin also came at a crucial moment. Our presence helped strengthen the confidence of other partners, allowing the cooperative to grow rapidly. Joseph Mugume:

“Since receiving the first loan from Alterfin, we have grown from 200 to 350 employees and from 15 to 19 branches. Membership increased from 90,000 to 130,000, and demand continues to rise.”

The licence: a historic recognition

In 2025, EBO SACCO reached a new milestone: it became the first savings and credit cooperative in Uganda to receive an official licence from the Bank of Uganda. This recognition is significant. The licence increases the cooperative’s visibility and strengthens the trust of national and international partners.

Thanks to the strong growth in membership, EBO SACCO also became more financially autonomous. Joseph Mugume:

“The contributions of our members now give us access to internal financing sources, meaning we are no longer solely dependent on external loans.”

Financial inclusion for refugees

The larger a cooperative becomes, the more people it can reach. Joseph Mugume:

“We can now fully integrate environmental, social and governance issues into our strategy, with clear indicators to monitor them.”

He gives a concrete example:

“Some of our branches operate in regions with large refugee populations*. Today, they provide financing to refugees as well as to the communities hosting them. This is important, because these groups have very limited access to major commercial banks.”

The cooperative now aims to provide more loans for climate change-related measures. As Joseph Mugume puts it:

“Our target groups – rural communities – need this the most.”

This story shows how a partner’s trajectory is often shaped through collaborations with various organisations, each contributing in their own way to further growth. It is a strong ecosystem, of which BRS, Trias and many others are part. Sometimes they play a pioneering role; sometimes they act as catalysts. Together, we strive to identify the organisations of tomorrow early on, strengthen them, and help them grow so they can create positive impact in as many lives as possible.

* Uganda hosts nearly 2 million refugees. Most come from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. According to UNHCR, Uganda is a leader in refugee integration and applies progressive policies on labour rights, access to public services and land allocation. Their presence increases demographic and economic pressure locally but also brings labour, particularly in agriculture and small trade.