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Strengthening Social and Gender Inclusion in Uganda’s Agrifood Systems in Commemoration of International Women’s Month. 

Uganda
09.03.2026
At Swisscontact, advancing gender equality and inclusivity is not treated as a moment on the calendar, but as a long-term commitment embedded in how systems are designed to work for people, grounded in Inclusive Systems Development. 

This month we join the world to commemorate International Women’s Month, recognizing the social, economic, cultural, and political contributions of women worldwide. This year’s focus reinforces an approach already embedded in our work: moving from commitment to measurable action, reflected in the UN global call for Rights, Justice, and Action for all women and girls. 

This means deliberately addressing the structural barriers that limit women’s participation and designing systems that reach those most often left behind, including young mothers, women with disabilities, and rural women. Gender equality and inclusion are understood not as women’s issues alone, but as a shared responsibility that requires collective action, accountability, and sustained investment to translate rights and justice into tangible economic and social outcomes.

The EcoProsperity Project: Advancing Inclusion Through Systemic Design.

In Uganda, inclusive economic participation remains one of the most persistent challenges in the agrifood sector. Women, young mothers and persons with disabilities continue to face structural barriers that limit their access to productive resources, information, finance, and markets. Long travel distances, high transaction costs, informal exclusion norms, and limited trust between service providers all contribute to this exclusion.

The EcoProsperity Project’s Integrated Community Centres address these challenges. Implemented in Eastern and Western Uganda, the EcoProsperity Project is creating climate resilient livelihoods for 12,000 women and youth, of whom 70% are women, through inclusive, market based approaches. The project collaborates with private sector actors, local governments, and business service providers to reduce the structural barriers that limit women’s access to opportunities in agriculture and related value chains.

An Integrated Community Center in Bulamuiti, strategically located in the heart of the community near farmers in the subcounty, bringing agricultural inputs, extension services, and market access closer to local producers. 
Farmers delivering freshly harvested tomatoes to the center during the harvest season, where the produce is collected, sorted, and prepared for market distribution.

The Integrated Community Centers under the EcoProsperity Project were first piloted in partnership with Traford Export Commodities in 2025, a key private sector actor engaged in the sourcing, aggregation, and export of high value horticultural produce in Kamuli District, Eastern Uganda. 

Together with Swisscontact, two Integrated Community Centers were established in Bulamuti and Balawoli sub counties in Kamuli District, directly serving 723 smallholder farmers. These centers were designed as decentralized service hubs where farmers, particularly women and youth, can access extension support, climate resilient inputs, aggregation and quality assurance services, structured market linkages, and tailored business and financial services in one coordinated location, avoiding long distance travel, which had been a structural barrier for women.

 

Key Milestones Achieved.

  • Improved Access to Inputs and Market Services: Through Community Integrated Centres (CICs), 723 farmers, of whom 611 were women, accessed quality inputs and sold their produce to Traford, demonstrating strong market integration and reduced reliance on middlemen.
  • Income Increase: Income increased from UGX 45,143,896 (CHF 9,501) to UGX 2,108,190,448 (CHF 420,937) across two production seasons for all participating farmers. The average net income per farmer was UGX 2,956,789 (CHF 622), with tomatoes emerging as the highest earning crop, surpassing the project target of CHF 500 per farmer annually.
  • Financial Inclusion and Resilience: The project strengthened financial access, with 89.2% of participants belonging to financial associations, mostly Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), 83% saving money, and 41% borrowing within the last year. Average monthly savings reached UGX 165,879 (CHF 34), while total estimated savings amounted to UGX 99.9 million (CHF 21,020). These gains improved liquidity and reinvestment capacity.
  • Food Security Improvements: The proportion of households consuming at least two meals a day increased to 98.2%, a major improvement from the 50% baseline. Most households (91.9%) relied on their own production for food, confirming improved food availability and stability.

A Systems Perspective on Social Inclusion.

This model demonstrates that social inclusion is achieved not by working harder at the margins, but by reshaping how systems function. By lowering entry barriers, aligning incentives for private sector actors, and decentralizing service delivery, inclusive delivery models become critical to reaching marginalized groups. This approach provides a practical pathway for embedding social and gender inclusion into market based interventions at scale.

By placing communities at the center of service delivery and aligning inclusion with commercial incentives, the EcoProsperity Project is demonstrating how inclusion through strong private sector engagement can move from aspiration to infrastructure, and from policy language to everyday practice.

This project is financed by Linsi Foundation, Happel Foundation and Canton Aargau, Canton of Basel-Landschaft, among other donors. It is part of the Swisscontact Development Programme, which is co-financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA.