While campaigning in the Luuka, Busoga subregion on the 1st of October 2025, NUP presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi was quoted by most media channels castigating the Parish Development Model (PDM) as a policy of government targeting the over 33% of Ugandans that are still outside the money economy. In fact, he vowed to freeze the fund when he is elected president. Instead, in his view, he would put that money in the health and education sectors.

One wonders what informed Kyagulanyi's wayward political statement. Is it because the program has been so successful, and therefore, he thinks it will give President Yoweri Museveni, his competitor, a mirage? Or was it a spur-of-the-moment statement made without much thought?

Kyagulanyi should know by now that even if the government committed half of its annual budget to the education and health sectors to attain world-class standards, this alone would not shift the people of Uganda out of poverty. To help the people move away from a subsistence lifestyle, the government needs to create programs that give citizens financial support and practical guidance so they can start profitable businesses and earn a steady income.

Uganda’s PDM policy is not cast in stone. Countries all over the world have pursued similar programs to shift their people to the wealth cluster, and the results are there for everyone to appreciate.

Indeed, President Yoweri Museveni saw this much earlier. Even when he built schools, hospitals, and state-of-the-art roads, he knew so well that Ugandans needed to shift substantially from their subsistence lifestyles and move into the money economy.

He therefore began socioeconomic programs aimed at changing their economic outlook.

Even before PDM, there was Boona Bagagawale, Entandikwa, Operation Wealth Creation, and now Emyoga and Youth Livelihood, among others. The usual naysayers are quick to say that these programs were all in vain. However, they forget that it is through such deliberate programs that poverty in Uganda has been reduced to 16.1%, according to the National Household Survey 2023/2024. Museveni critics shouldn't forget that it is through such interventions that Uganda is currently the leading exporter of most cash crops in the region. Uganda is now the number one coffee exporter in Africa. We feed the region and the rest of the world with maize, milk, beans, cocoa, vanilla, sugarcane, etc.

For one to fully appreciate the value of PDM, one must study Indonesia’s Prof. Muhammad Yunus and his microfinance support programs that turned around the Indonesian poor masses. Prof. Muhammad Yunus pioneered microfinance to give the unbanked rural poor, especially women, access to credit for self-employment and small businesses. The aim was to create bottom-up development where economic growth starts with the most marginalized.

Born in Bangladesh on June 28, 1940, in the early 1970s, Yunus completed his PhD in economics at Vanderbilt University. Yunus returned to Bangladesh to become the head of Chittagong University's economics department.

Around the time of Yunus' return to Bangladesh, a famine had swept through the country. He became aware that the poor needed access to capital to start small businesses and that banks generally weren't willing to help them, either refusing requests outright or charging extortionate interest rates.

In 1976, Yunus decided to take action himself. He lent about $27 in total to 42 local women who needed money to buy materials for their work. Traditional banks refused to lend to people without collateral, but Yunus believed that even the poorest individuals could improve their lives and start small businesses through microcredit and microloans.

In 1983, Yunus formally opened the Grameen (Village) bank, which served as a way to offer microcredit to entry-level and subsistence entrepreneurs. By June 2020, Grameen Bank had given $30.48 billion worth of loans to some of the world's poorest people. Perhaps more importantly, Yunus' scheme and his promotion of microcredit led to the formation of hundreds of similar projects in nations around the world.

Similarly, introduced in 2022, PDM is Uganda’s flagship poverty eradication and wealth creation program. It targets the 39% of Ugandans who rely on a subsistence economy, aiming to help them join the money economy through parish-level Savings and Credit Cooperative Organizations (SACCOs).

The president’s call for everyone to join the money economy with 'ekibalo' is being realized. All the 10,594 parishes nationwide receive Shs 100 million each annually, directly credited to Parish SACCO accounts. PDM funding for Greater Kampala Metropolitan will rise to Shs. 300 million per parish, with special grants for people with disabilities, village leaders, and religious leaders.

Finally, Kyagulanyi should pick a lesson from Yoweri Museveni and Prof. Yunus Muhammad. Uganda’s PDM emphasizes borrower responsibility and accountability and trains and supports local financial institutions (SACCOs) the way Grameen trained its staff. It also focuses on women's empowerment, not just equal distribution, and ensures sustainability by encouraging savings and reinvestment rather than over-reliance on government injection.

The Writer is the Acting Executive Director
Uganda Media Centre