Conference on SACCOs' economic importance
Though frequently overlooked in research and interventions on financial inclusion, SACCOs are crucial for financing the projects of millions of Africans. This one-day conference brings together researchers and practitioners to take stock of SACCOs’ economic importance and identify needs and opportunities for supporting their work.
Date and time: 26 November 2026, 08.00 am
Location: Islamic University in Uganda, Kampala town Campus, Kibuli, https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yt9gBTCQXYL4m8bz6
While big commercial banks are the dominant financial institutions in the West, the developing markets of East Africa are full of small and medium sized financial institutions. The most important kind of them are Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs). These institutions, the first of which predate independence, are locally owned and run cooperatives that pool savings and grant loans to their members. As cooperatives, they do not aim to make a profit, but to benefit saving and borrowing members with attractive interest rates. Being a crucial source of loans to the East African middle class, SACCOs contribute to economic development, shape its form and co-determine the distribution of its fruits. However, SACCOs do not command much attention in either the academic literature or in development interventions targeting financial inclusion, due to a widespread focus on microfinance institutions and their ultra-poor target group.
This conference brings together researchers working on SACCOs with practitioners and philanthropic actors to take stock of SACCOs’ economic importance, to reflect on whether their work needs support and which form it could take.
The conference was initiated by Georg Schmerzeck from the University of Gothenburg’s financial ethics research group, whose quantitative research shows that Kenyan SACCOs’ lending activity can effectively be promoted by depositing money in them, thus proposing one possible avenue of support. It is hosted by the Islamic University in Uganda, whose Madinah Nabukeera has been working on Ugandan SACCOs for years. The conference is funded by a generous grant of the Lars Hierta memorial foundation.
Organizers:
Prisca Kyalisiima, Mountains of the Moon University
Madinah Nabukeera, Islamic University in Uganda
Georg Schmerzeck, University of Gothenburg
Further information:
Charitable Deposits - Stimulating Finance-Led Growth for Sustainable International Charity (Schmerzeck 2025): https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5469846
Islamic University in Uganda: https://www.iuiu.ac.ug/
SACCO stands for Savings and Credit Cooperative Organization.