Ahead of Coop Day in Fort Portal, UCA's Johnas Tweyambe sets out the movement's asks

Uganda marks the 103rd International Day of Cooperatives in Fort Portal City on Saturday, 5 July 2025, and the Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA) has used the build-up to deliver more than greetings. At a press conference at the Uganda Media Centre, UCA board chairperson Johnas Tweyambe thanked the government for its support of the cooperative model — and then set out a detailed list of what the movement still needs.

This year's global theme is "Cooperatives: Driving Inclusive and Sustainable Solutions for a Better World", and it falls within the UN's 2025 International Year of Cooperatives. UCA tied its message to Uganda's own planning framework, the Fourth National Development Plan and Vision 2040, arguing that no other model fits national budget priorities as seamlessly as cooperatives.

Mr Tweyambe has led UCA's board for several years; when an International Cooperative Alliance delegation visited Kampala in January 2019 it was received by him and UCA general secretary Ivan Asiimwe.

The first ask is about people. UCA wants heavy investment in capacity building, particularly for groups formed under the Parish Development Model and Emyooga, which it describes as still in their early stages and in need of continued handholding through cooperative education, training and access to information.

It also wants the country's two cooperative colleges, at Kigumba and Tororo, upgraded into universities or degree-awarding institutions, and a national policy on cooperative education covering employees, leaders and cooperative development officers. The argument is simple: thousands of new SACCOs have been created in a few years, but the pipeline of trained managers and board members has not kept pace.

Mr Tweyambe also praised government action to protect cooperative assets, especially UCA's own, saying many are now caveated and that those attempting illegal sales or fraudulent transfers will face prosecution.

On finance, UCA welcomed the re-establishment of the Cooperative Bank after 25 years but said it will need substantial capital to lend affordably to cooperatives. It went further, proposing that money now spread across Emyooga, PDM, GROW, INVITE, the Women Entrepreneurship Fund, the Youth Livelihood Fund and other schemes be consolidated into a single fund channelled through the Cooperative Bank.

On industrialisation, UCA urged government to invest in agro-processing through cooperatives, and to formally hand existing government-built facilities over to cooperatives so they can be revived for value addition and market access. Dairy cooperatives that already bulk and chill milk for their members offer a model of what that could look like at scale.

Finally, UCA called for a review and harmonisation of the legal, policy and regulatory framework for cooperatives, especially SACCOs, guided by the Attorney General and Solicitor General, saying overlaps and gaps in the law hinder SACCO operations. It also asked for more funding for the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives and for UCA as the apex body.

UCA is the apex body for a movement that has changed shape rapidly. When the International Cooperative Alliance delegation visited in 2019, it recorded Uganda's movement as 10,641 primary cooperatives with roughly 3.9 million members, 41 cooperative unions and four federations. Since then, government programmes have added thousands of new societies, many of them parish and enterprise SACCOs.

UCA welcomed that influx, saying it was proud of the many youth and women's groups under Emyooga that have formed or joined cooperatives. It also argued that the 2025/26 national budget — with its focus on commercial agriculture, industrialisation, digital transformation, social services and market access — is in harmony with the cooperative model, and invited young people and the private sector to join the movement.

Globally, the International Day of Cooperatives is celebrated on the first Saturday of July each year, and in 2025 it carries extra weight because it falls inside the UN's International Year of Cooperatives.

Taken together, UCA's list is a candid diagnosis. Government has poured money into cooperative-style structures through PDM and Emyooga, but the institutions that make cooperatives work — education, apex support, clear law and patient capital — have lagged behind.

The single-fund proposal will be the most contested, because it would shift control of large public programmes toward a cooperative-owned bank. But it reflects a fair frustration: dozens of parallel schemes, each with its own rules, make it hard for any cooperative to plan.

Coop Day speeches are often forgotten by August. This year's asks deserve to be tracked.