Replication of Rural Information Support project with Department of co-operatives of MTTI - Uganda

The leveraging activities of the RIS project of the Uganda Commodity Exchange (UCE) with the Department of Cooperative at MTTI have been discussed for a long time but has not seen any progress.

The Rural Information System (RIS) project started in 2003. Together with the Uganda Commodity Exchange (UCE), RIS aim is to enable rural farmers to increase their income. The project is about enabling subsistence farmers to adapt a more commercial trading approach which seems deemed necessary in a country with a population growth of about 6% and an increase in agricultural production of about 3.5%.

This replication phase with MTTI aims at establishing 3 new RIS centres with organisations that will allow farmers to use the following services:

1.      The services of a warehouse system (supported by the EU) which, once fully setup, will enable farmers to store their commodities, to transport their commodities to the market of their choice and to sell their commodities whenever they want.

2.      The services of a crop marketing bureau: Farmers are able to send and receive timely, accurate and adequate market information on markets for their produce thus enabling them to market their products at good prices.

The profits of the centres go partly (to recover for investment costs) into a revolving fund to establish new centres.

IICD has worked with MTTI for many years now in various areas (from policy to project implementation), and as a strategic partner in livelihood has shown interest in the RIS project.

Read more about IICD’s Uganda Country Programme.

The leveraging activities of the RIS project of the Uganda Commodity Exchange (UCE) with MTTI is progressing slowly. Implementation activities are yet to start - planning phase is completed but implementation awaits signature of MoU between IICD and MTTI.

Establishment of RIS centers in collaboration with the MTTI department of cooperatives as a capacity development effort towards a national roll-out after the pilot phase.

Replication with MTTI is yet to start.

Read more about IICD’s approach towards Livelihoods.

• There is rising interest in market information access. RIS is a key building block in market linkages. There is need to orient producers to not just produce but to produce what the market needs and when and where it is needed.