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Parish SACCOs at the Crossroads: PDM's Trillion-Shilling Test of RepaymentShs9 billion back from Shs3 trillion out: the uncomfortable arithmetic of PDM recoveryWendi's Shs240b question: can a SACCO wallet turn deposits into credit?Dry Spell Tests Ankole's Dairy Co-operatives as Milk Volumes CollapseBelow One Percent: Can Community Schemes and SACCOs Close Uganda's Health Insurance Gap?Parish SACCOs at the Crossroads: PDM's Trillion-Shilling Test of RepaymentShs9 billion back from Shs3 trillion out: the uncomfortable arithmetic of PDM recoveryWendi's Shs240b question: can a SACCO wallet turn deposits into credit?Dry Spell Tests Ankole's Dairy Co-operatives as Milk Volumes CollapseBelow One Percent: Can Community Schemes and SACCOs Close Uganda's Health Insurance Gap?
Opinion & AnalysisSubscribers

The International Year of Cooperatives is over. Did Uganda build a better cooperative movement?

By Kaza Research Desk

30 December 2025 · 4 min read

Coffee farmers at work among coffee bushes
Smallholder producers remain the historic heart of Uganda's cooperative movement, which dates to 1913. · Photo: Jameswasswa / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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When the UN General Assembly declared 2025 the International Year of Cooperatives in June 2024, it chose a theme — "Cooperatives Build a Better World" — that was both a celebration and a challenge. It was only the second such year, following the first in 2012, and its official global launch took place at the International Cooperative Alliance's Global Cooperative Conference in New Delhi in late November 2024. The year was explicitly tied to accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals before 2030. Member states were invited to set up national committees and to use the year to promote cooperatives' contribution to social and economic development.

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Sources & references

  1. UN General Assembly announces launch of the 2025 International Year of Cooperatives — United Nations DESA, 2024-06-20
  2. Govt disburses Shs529b PDM money to Saccos — Daily Monitor, 2025-11-19
  3. A New Dawn for Uganda’s Cooperative Movement — Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, 2025-09
  4. Gov’t Urged to Invest More in Cooperatives to Drive Socio-Economic Transformation — Publicist East Africa, 2025-07-02
  5. Uganda: Cooperatives Are Critical Engines for Community Development-Says Minister Gume — AllAfrica, 2025-12-17

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