In March 2018, Uganda’s Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MoFPED)1 formally requested technical assistance from the World Bank Group (WBG) to conduct a technical and diagnostic review of the Uganda Agricultural Insurance Scheme (UAIS) with the objective of providing recommendations to enhance the scalability and sustainability of the scheme going forward. MoFPED asked the WBG (i) to conduct an in-depth review of the UAIS—focusing on the technical soundness of its crop and livestock insurance products and services, the adequacy of its institutional and operational systems and procedures, and the adequacy of its financial performance—in order to identify gaps and to provide recommendations for strengthening scheme design and implementation moving forward; and (ii) to identify potential crop and livestock insurance products that could be introduced under the UAIS and that better align with the Government of Uganda’s (GoU’s) policy priorities of achieving scalability and financial sustainability for the UAIS. Recognizing the critical role agricultural finance at large plays in the agricultural transformation agenda, it was agreed with the MoFPED that the scope of the analysis be expanded to include a rapid assessment of agriculture finance.
This technical report covers the rapid assessment of agriculture finance and its recommendations, the findings of the situation and gap analysis of the UAIS, and where appropriate, presents the WBG’s recommendations for strengthening the scheme; it also includes a proposal for two additional insurance programs, one for crop and one for livestock, targeted at small-scale farmers.