42 percent of Uganda\u2019s population aged 16 and above save money using different mechanisms while 58 percent don\u2019t save at all, the 2024 National Population & Housing Census report reveals.<\/p>\n
During the 2024 census, Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) asked Ugandans the type of saving mechanisms they used in the last 12 months preceding the NPHC 2024.<\/p>\n
According to the report, saving money on mobile money was the most used mechanism for saving (20%) followed by keeping cash at home (17%).<\/p>\n
Only 7 percent were using commercial banks as savings mechanisms.<\/p>\n
The report adds that 5 percent of the population used SACCOs for saving and the least proportion of savers (1%) who use formal institutions use credit institutions for saving. 4.3% of the population use MFDIs to save their money.<\/p>\n
Savings are an important determinant of both individual and national well-being.<\/p>\n
According to the report, Buganda had the highest number of savers with the most used mechanism being mobile money (28%) West Nile had its highest percentage of the population keeping cash at home (19%).<\/p>\n
The highest percentage of those saving with SACCOs (10%) were from Bunyoro sub region. The highest percentage of those using commercial banks (13%) were from Buganda sub region and the least percentage of those who were using commercial banks (2.2%) was from the West Nile subregion.<\/p>\n
The report further reveals that the highest percentage (28%) of the population used formal saving mechanisms. A higher percentage of<\/p>\n
male savers (30%) in Uganda use formal institutions compared to female savers (25%).<\/p>\n
However, there are more female savers using informal institutions (15%) compared to their male counterparts (11%).<\/p>\n
The biggest percentage (64%) of those who use formal mechanisms of saving are people who attained post-secondary levels of education and above. Buganda sub region had the highest percentage (37.4%) of users of formal institutions to save and it also had the least percentage (9%) of users of informal institutions. Accessibility<\/p>\n
The report shows that Village savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) are the highest available financial service providers (76%) followed by mobile money agents (69%). 46% of the parishes reported availability of a SACCO with a physical location. Among formal banking institutions, banking agents were the commonly available financial institutions as registered in 13% of the parishes.<\/p>\n
Commercial banks and DTIs (Deposit Taking Institutions) are the least available (2% and 2% respectively), the report says.<\/p>\n
The common financial institutions are the VSLAs, with up-to 76% of the parishes having reported to have VSLA in their communities.<\/p>\n
The report reveals that the West Nile sub-region had VSLAs in 93 percent of their parishes while Elgon Sub-region had 55 percent of parishes with a VSLA.<\/p>\n
Buganda sub-region reported the highest percentage of parishes having mobile money agents (87%) while Karamoja had<\/p>\n
the lowest (29%). Results on availability of a SACCO with a physical address also show that overall, 46 percent of the parishes in Uganda had a SACCO. The highest percentage was reported in Teso (58%) and the lowest in Kigezi (35%).<\/p>\n
Overall, with the exception of VSLA that is available in Rural (76%) and urban (75%) areas, all the categories of the financial services were more common in urban areas compared to rural areas. This is more evident for the money lenders (40% compared to 25%), and banking agents (22% compared to 7%).<\/p>\n
If you have a story in your community or an opinion article, let’s publish it. Send us an email via news@accord.co.ug or WhatsApp +256758201313. Follow our WhatsApp Channel HERE<\/a> and our Telegram Channel HERE<\/a> to see more of our stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 42 percent of Uganda\u2019s population aged 16 and above save money using different mechanisms while 58 percent don\u2019t save at all, the 2024 National Population & Housing Census report reveals. During the 2024 census, Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) asked Ugandans the type of saving mechanisms they used in the last 12 months preceding the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,31],"tags":[258,257,256],"class_list":{"0":"post-22235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-citizen-business","8":"category-national","9":"tag-census2024","10":"tag-dr-chris-mukiza","11":"tag-ubos"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/citizenposts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/download-20.jpeg?fit=275%2C183&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenposts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenposts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenposts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenposts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenposts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citizenposts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22237,"href":"https:\/\/citizenposts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22235\/revisions\/22237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenposts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenposts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenposts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenposts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}