Molly Tusiimirwe, client of Kigarama Farmers SACCO
Molly Tusiimirwe, 38, is a tailor in Katoozo Village, a rural area with banana and coffee groves in Southwestern Uganda. She specializes in kitenge, a traditional dress, and trains apprentices in tailoring. Molly began borrowing from Envest’s partner, Kigarama Farmers SACCO, in 2018 with a $400 loan, after hearing about the SACCO from local farmers. Her current $1,400 loan was used to buy two more sewing machines and additional materials. Molly now has five sewing machines and trains four apprentices. Her husband, Innocent, a banana farmer, supports Molly by providing his banana plantation as collateral for her loan.
Loni Mumpe, client of Development Microfinance
Loni Mumpe, 32, is a mechanic who owns an auto parts store and car repair shop just outside of Kampala, Uganda. He received his first loan of $135 from Development Microfinance (DMF), an Envest partner, as a member of a lending group comprised of workers in a stone quarry. In Uganda, quarry work is an entrepreneurial activity, with small groups contracting with landowners to extract construction material. Group members access credit together and cosign on each other’s loans, which is a standard practice in microfinance when individual collateral is limited. Through his work at the quarry and participation in the lending group, Loni established a track record with DMF, which qualified him for an individual loan. In 2022, Loni combined his quarry profits with a $280 loan from DMF to open an auto parts shop. He continues to borrow from DMF to grow his business.
Loni also used quarry profits to finance the opening of a beauty salon for his wife, Patience Kyalimpa. Together, they can pay their two children’s school fees. Loni says that without DMF, he would not have been able to start his own business, nor would his wife. The DMF team said that it is common for quarry workers to earn enough money to buy property and begin a business in a different line of work. DMF often continues lending to borrowers such as Loni when they transition to other activities. The trust established during borrowing within the quarry group allows DMF and the clients to continue the lending relationship seamlessly.
A key theme among these three borrowers is the impact of supportive husbands on families’ economic advancement. Caleb works for his wife Edith’s fishing business. Innocent provides collateral for Molly’s tailoring business. Loni invests in his wife Patience’s beauty salon. These examples reveal that supportive husbands are crucial contributors to their families’ progress, a trend notable but not universal in Uganda.
Women in Uganda too often lack the support and value they deserve, but the men described above demonstrate the positive difference a supportive husband can make. These stories show how microfinance, when combined with supportive spouses, can amplify families’ chances of economic progress.
We do not yet know how common supportive husbands are within microfinance initiatives. We intend to work with our partners to explore how often this dynamic exists and how MFIs can encourage it. Insights from this effort can deepen our understanding of microfinance’s potential.
Microfinance has long been recognized for providing loans to women who have little or no family support for their economic needs and ambitions. Group lending and microloans are particularly effective in reaching women without collateral or family support. This is an incredibly valuable role for microfinance, and we are excited to support it. It appears that microfinance may also play a role in accelerating the economic advancement of families in which the husband supports his wife. This would be a quiet and subtle, but extremely important contribution of microfinance. We look forward to gaining more insight into this topic.
Article by Jon Bishop, CEO and Founder of Envest Microfinance, and Annette Ecila, East Africa Regional Representative for Envest Microfinance.