Country Updates: Last month, the New York Times reported that a new, insecticide resistant, Malaria-carrying mosquito called Stephensi had spread to areas of East Africa after emerging in Djibouti a decade ago. It breeds in urban as well as rural areas and attacks during the day, which means bed nets will no longer offer the high-level of protection that has helped reduce malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years. Entomologists predict that the species will continue to expand across the continent and pit urban and rural areas in a competition for scarce resources to combat this emerging public health crisis. Article

In Memoriam: Nelson Gutaka Mafabi

Anyone who has ever introduced a new project to a rural community in a developing nation quickly learned that without the support of village elders, the project will fail. Rural communities have severely limited resources and extensive demands on their time to provide food, water and shelter for their families. They look to their local leaders to help guide them in determining how to use scarce resources and whether to expend time and energy in pursuing a new initiative.

When WMI first introduced the loan program in Buyobo, Uganda in 2008, we were fortunate to be welcomed with open arms by the community’s senior village elder: Nelson Gutaka. Uncle to WMI board member June Kyakobye, Nelson learned about the loan program in great detail before the WMI team arrived in Buyobo. He discussed it with the Bulambuli Widow’s Association so that their 20 members who would be the first WMI borrowers understood how it would operate. And, he gave his highest endorsement to the selection of Olive Wolimbwa as the Chairwoman, a decision that has helped make WMI such a successful initiative. Sadly, on August 25th, Nelson passed away after a prolonged battle with throat cancer.

Together with his late brother, George Mafabi, Nelson started the Village Health Teams project that WMI continues to support and he pioneered the power project that brought electricity to Buyobo. He spearheaded the water project that WMI helped financed to rebuild the community’s distribution system from scratch and bring piped water closer to people's homes. 

Together with his siblings he founded the Buyobo Community Development Association, an organization that galvanized the introduction of numerous community improvement projects, and that shared the cost of building a joint headquarters with the WMI loan program.

Village elders embody characteristics that engender the community's trust: solidarity, altruism, reciprocity and equity. They are active leaders and volunteers who can greatly influence outcomes and behavior patterns. Nelson embraced his leadership role wholeheartedly to benefit the community he served.

Nelson leaves behind 11 children, 23 grandchildren, 4 brothers and 2 sisters. Promoting respect, hard-work, justice and honesty, he earned a mandate to lead from his peers and helped guide community decision-making for well over 60 years. He will be sorely missed by all who were fortunate enough to know him.

Melinda French Gates on Microfinance for Women

In the October 4, 2023 issue of the Economist, Melinda French Gates wrote passionately about the impact microloans for women has on poverty reduction and the need to make access to financing more accessible for poor women.

“Decades of research have shown that when women can fully participate in economies, it increases financial stability for their households, helps families recover more quickly from shocks and supports a country’s resilience. The data show a correlation between women’s economic agency and reduced poverty, and experts consider such agency essential to food security.”

“One way to unleash this power is to increase women’s access to affordable capital. In emerging economies where job opportunities are limited, a woman’s ability to earn an income often depends on her ability to start a business. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor estimates that 17% of women in developing countries are already “early-stage” entrepreneurs, and more than 40% hope to start a business. In a recent survey of women in Nigeria, the vast majority said owning or expanding a business was their “biggest economic ambition”—and the biggest barrier they faced was “lack of access to startup capital”.

Her article enumerates the same roadblocks to women’s access to capital that WMI has documented over the past 16 years: lack of a track record, outrageous interest rates, discrimination by institutional lenders. She also notes the importance of supporting ancillary programs that impact a woman’s ability to start a business such as access to healthcare and reproductive information and services. WMI continues to expand operations in order to provide more rural women with access to financial services and critical support programs that are crucial to their ability to start a business.

To address this untenable situation, WMI has launched an elephant grass briquette project in partnership with Sun24, a non-profit promoting green energy alternatives for village communities, which has provided a 5-year grant for the initiative. Biomass fuel alternatives are commanding substantial attention in emerging economies. Elephant grass is one of the fastest growing plants on the planet (similar to bamboo) and stores CO2 in its roots. The grass is harvested, dried and compressed into biomass fuel briquettes. When burned, the briquettes emit very little smoke because of their high energy density. The grass can be harvested 4- 6 times a year, making it an excellent source of biomass fuel.

WMI’s loan hub in Southwest, Uganda has just planted nearly 5 acres of elephant grass on leased land. Forty of our borrowers there have been trained on briquette- making and how to make and use bio char from existing maize stock while the elephant grass matures. New concepts always take time to gain traction but the ladies were very enthusiastic about the health benefits of eliminating smoke from cooking fires and saving money on cooking!

Girl's Empowerment Program Video

When is a pig not just a pig? When it opens the door for a teen-age girl to build a business. 

Continuing our partnership with the non-profit Rukundo International, WMI has supported over 1,600 young women in graduating from the Girl’s Empowerment Program, which teaches basic entrepreneurial skills and provides resources for each participant to start a small business. The young women are eager to learn and extremely dedicated to making their small enterprises a success.

Speaking from their hearts, recent graduates recorded a video explaining how the program has positively impacted their lives. Video