Coop-Africa/International Labor Organization (ILo)
Under Coop-Africa/ILo, UPMA seeks is to promote a saving and Credit Cooperative Culture among Ugandan Private Midwives (PMWs) for improved services.

Problem to be addressed
While private midwives are supplementing government efforts to address the maternal and infant care and reproductive health problems by providing a substantial number of essential services, they face many obstacles in financially sustaining their business practices. Besides not having the business skills, working capital is meager among many PMWs, and traditional commercial-sector loans are difficult for most PMWs to obtain due to lack of security and high interest rates. As a result of the economic context in which they practice, many private-sector midwives are unable to raise much needed capaital to grow or expand their business which ultimately leads to poor quality service provision, and even poverty.
  UPMA proposes to address the financial hardships faced by PMWs in their workplace through promotion  of  SACCOs  schemes to enable them  raise the much capital  to purchase the necessary  products  for  use at their  workplace, improve  the physical environment , acquire necessary  equipment   and  hire and/or   recruit  additional  staff. No  single   project  ,or  organization  has  come  to  address  the  above problem this project  seeks  to  address

Project goal and expected outcomes
The  aim  of  the  project  is to  promote  a  Savings and Credit Cooperative culture among Ugandan  private  midwives in  order  to  enable  PMWs  raise  the  much needed capital   to  purchase  health  products  for  use at their  workplace, improve   their  physical   infrastructure  , purchase necessary  equipment   and  hire and/or   recruit  additional  staff   .

 Immediate  expected  outcomes include  i)  increased  savings, and  borrowing  amongst  the  PMWs  at  user  friendly  rates,   increased   service delivery from PMWs  as  a result of increased availability  of health  products,  leading to reduced  poverty  amongst  the private  midwives .  Expected outcomes  in  the  medium and long-term include an improved workplace environment of  the private midwives from the perceptive  of  welfare  of  private midwives and from  client’s   quality   of  care  point  of view, reflected  in  such attributes as  improved, affordable and increased availability of a range of maternal and infant care and support services in the private midwives workplace communities. This is expected to lead to reduced incidence and prevalence of maternal and infant morbidity and mortality, and increased availability of a range of contraceptives, and other  RH  services