aBi-Trust, NMG to boost women, youth projects

The Agricultural Business Initiative (aBi-Trust) and the Nation Media Group Uganda (NMG-U) are planning for sustainability programmes targeting the social inclusion of women, youth, and refugees.

The Chief Executive Officer of aBi-Finance Ltd, Ms Mona Muguma Ssebuliba, said the two companies have registered success in joint implementation of programmes such as Seeds of Gold farm clinics, climate change symposia, and the Covid-19 recovery programme.

She said the two companies are now targeting vulnerable groups and underserved areas such as northern and eastern Uganda.

“Why a partnership like this is necessary is because of social inclusion for refugees, youth, women, and underserved regions such as north and eastern Uganda. Smallholder farmers will always remain a focus area, as well as partnerships to access finance,” Ms Ssebuliba said.

She was addressing a team from NMG-U led by the Managing Director, Ms Susan Nsibirwa, who paid a courtesy call to her on Thursday.

Mr George Mutagubya, the head of communications and advocacy at aBi-Trust, noted that the partnerships in Seeds of Gold farm clinics around the country brought together financial institutions, impact investors, SMEs and traders in one space where farmers engaged with them.

“We believe that has been successful because the SMEs we work with take advantage of this information. We feel this is good information that has helped them improve their yields. Seeds of Gold has worked for us,” he said.

He appreciated NMG-U for the partnership on the climate change symposia, which brought together stakeholders such as the Ministry of Water and Environment, GGI and GIZ to discuss climate change mitigation measures in the country.

Mr Mutagubya explained that the meeting acted as a precursor for other partnerships with industry players and the Ministry of Finance for campaigns for business development, which helped businesses to recover from the challenges they encountered during the Covid-19 pandemic. Ms Nsibirwa said NMG-U works towards impacting society by amplifying discussion about prevalent issues.

“We are here to explore ways to sustainability, climate change and social inclusion. These are areas we have in our social responsibility index,” she said. “We want to go beyond what we have been doing with Seeds of Gold farm clinics and see what more we can do together. How can we work together, to do more? We are already working together but we can do more,” she added.

Mr Sam Barata, the head of commercial at NMG-U, said following the success of the Seeds of Gold project, there is a need for the two institutions to discuss how to create new partnerships in thematic areas that impact the common people such as health and agriculture.

Mr Esau Joshua Watwaluma, the brand manager at NMG-U, said the annual five Seeds of Gold clinics attract more than 7,000 farmers.