Four years after the Parish Development Model was launched, monitoring in Adjumani reveals a complicated picture of money reaching households, but also gaps in training, markets, supervision and loan recovery. Across West Nile and the country, audit findings point to similar questions about whether the revolving fund can become a sustainable engine of household transformation.

By Bazio Doreen.

The day the money arrived was supposed to mark a turning point.

For one beneficiary in Dzaipi Sub County, however, the Shs 1 million came on the same day his father died.

The beneficiary used part of the money to buy a coffin.

It is a small story in a programme involving trillions of shillings, millions of beneficiaries and thousands of parish savings and credit cooperatives. But it captures one of the central tensions surrounding Uganda’s Parish Development Model (PDM): what happens when money intended to transform a household meets the realities of life at household level?

PDM was launched in February 2022 with the stated objective of moving households (up to 39% of the country’s population) from subsistence production into Uganda’s money economy. Under the Parish Revolving Fund, eligible beneficiaries can access loans of up to Shs 1 million at 6 percent interest, with repayment structured over three years, including a two-year grace period. Four years on, the scale is considerable.

By September 2026, the Ministry of Finance said the government had capitalized the Parish Revolving Fund with Shs 4.317 trillion, reaching 3,571,108 beneficiaries through 10, 589 PDM SACCOs. Women account for 53.88 percent of beneficiaries, while men account for 46.12 percent.

But the question is no longer simply how much money has been disbursed. It is what that money has become.

When Shs1 million meets a household’s reality.

In Adjumani, the question has become particularly visible through a monitoring exercise conducted by Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG) through Participatory Budget Clubs (PBCs) between April and May 2026.

The findings from the monitoring exercise were disseminated to key stakeholders including district technical staff, beneficiaries, PBC Chairpersons and Sub County leaders during a meeting held on 30^th September 2026 at the District Natural Resources Boardroom.

Peter Apidra, CSBAG Field Officer in Adjumani, told key stakeholders that PDM’s economic empowerment component directly relates to CSBAG’s mandate to collectively influence government and effectively participate in setting national budget priorities.

“PDM has a component of economic empowerment which aligns directly with the CSBAG mandate of budgeting and planning,” Apidra said.

He noted that community monitoring provides an important mechanism for identifying challenges affecting programme beneficiaries and informing improvements in planning and implementation not just at the district level but even at the national level.

CSBAG is a coalition formed in 2004 to bring together CSOs at national and district levels to influence government decisions on resource mobilization and utilization for equitable and sustainable development.

During the monitoring exercise under the “Strengthening Budget Accountability Systems and Practices Project” that started in 2024 and ends in 2027, PBCs interviewed 94 PDM beneficiaries across the district. The findings offer a window into the lives behind the program’s statistics.

Of those interviewed, 50 were women and 44 were men. Thirty-seven were aged between 18 and 35, 48 were between 36 and 60 years, while nine were above 60 years.

Their education levels also varied considerably: 22 had no formal education, 39 had attained Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) level, 27 had reached Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE), three had Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) qualifications and three had degrees.

For many, PDM is therefore not simply a question of accessing credit. It is a programme being implemented among households with different levels of education, financial literacy, business experience and economic resilience. That distinction matters.

A loan may be designed as capital, but a household does not stop having emergencies simply because it has received public financing. A death in the family, food shortages, school requirements, medical needs or a poor harvest can compete with an enterprise for the same money.

According to Aserua Rose, who represented the LC III Chairperson Pachara Sub County, some beneficiaries, bought mattresses with the PDM money.

The problem, she argued, was not necessarily the mattress itself, but the fact that it would not generate income with which the loan could be repaid.

“I have seen some beneficiaries buy mattresses in this money. I wonder if the mattresses can generate any income or interest,” Aserua observed.

The challenge is therefore not only whether beneficiaries receive the money. It is whether the economic environment around them allows a Shs 1 million loan to become a productive asset.

A programme that has grown far beyond Adjumani.

The Adjumani experience sits within a much larger national experiment.

The 2024 National Population and Housing Census found that 832,746 households nationally had benefited from PDM funds, representing 7.8 percent of the country’s households. In West Nile, 62,984 households had benefited, equivalent to 9.8 percent of the region’s 640,901 households.

The census figures also show variation within the region. The Madi area recorded 11.1 percent of households benefiting, while West Nile overall stood at 9.8 percent.

By February 2024, the Ministry of Finance data cited by the Economic Policy Research Centre showed that West Nile had 830 PDM SACCOs and had received about Shs 83 billion in transfers to SACCOs.

By 2025, the figure had grown considerably. Manifesto implementation data presented in February 2026 indicated that 830 PDM SACCOs had been operationalized across West Nile, with Shs 254 billion reportedly reaching 227,890 beneficiaries between 2021 and 2025.

The numbers demonstrate the reach of the programme. But they also raise another question: If hundreds of billions have entered the region, how much has remained in circulation as productive capital?

The repayment clock.

The first PDM loans were disbursed in December 2022, with a 24-month grace period. That grace period expired in December 2024, meaning beneficiaries from the first funding cycle were expected to begin repaying so that the money could revolve to other households.

The national recovery figures have since raised concern. The Auditor General reported that among beneficiaries who received Parish Revolving Fund money by December 2022, only 18,105 beneficiaries in 709 SACCOs across 30 local governments had commenced voluntary recovery, with Shs 9.34 billion recovered. This was against more than Shs 3.26 trillion released to the programme.

The national audit also found that by the end of the 2024/25 financial year, Shs 3.259 trillion had been released to 10,589 SACCOs, while Shs 2.750 trillion had been disbursed to households. In a sample of 115 local governments, Shs 547.7 billion—73 percent of the Parish Revolving Fund received—had been disbursed, leaving about Shs 205 billion undisbursed.

The audit further identified 109 beneficiaries in 86 SACCOs whose projects did not exist, 328 households that had not procured planned items, and 2,336 households in 506 SACCOs that had received the revolving fund more than once. Accounting officers cited delayed or off-season disbursements, climate and market conditions, weak supervision and inadequate beneficiary guidance among the factors affecting implementation. The implications reach beyond individual borrowers.

PDM is structured as a revolving fund. If the first generation of borrowers does not repay, the same capital cannot easily reach the next generation.

That is why repayment is not merely a debt-collection issue. It is central to whether the programme can sustain itself.

Adjumani’s own repayment challenge.

In Adjumani, the CSBAG monitoring exercise found that only 33 of the 94 beneficiaries interviewed had partially repaid their loans. The finding comes alongside another concern: 74 beneficiaries said they had no records for their enterprises.

For a programme based on revolving capital, that creates a difficult chain of accountability. Without records, it becomes harder for a beneficiary to know whether an enterprise is making a profit or a loss. It becomes harder for SACCO leaders to track performance. And it becomes harder for local government officials to establish whether the original investment is still generating value.

Eriku Patrick Keleture, the Town Clerk of Adjumani Town Council, described the recovery situation bluntly, saying only a small percentage of the revolving fund had been recovered.

He also warned that programmes such as PDM need to be taken seriously because local governments may increasingly depend on locally generated revenue and loan repayments in the future.

At the same time, he questioned whether the Shs 100 million allocation per parish is adequate across parishes with different geographical sizes and populations.

For some beneficiaries, the biggest problem is not necessarily unwillingness to work. It is finding someone to buy what they produce.

The CSBAG monitoring found that 27 beneficiaries had no reliable market for their produce or enterprises and depended on middlemen.

Amoko Justin, a Participatory Budget Club member from Dzaipi Sub County, said beneficiaries sometimes ended up consuming their own produce because of limited markets.

His example was simple: sim sim and groundnuts could be produced successfully, but if there is no dependable buyer, the enterprise can quickly stop functioning as a commercial activity.

“When everyone in the village has sim sim or gnuts, it is hard to sell. You will end up eating what you have harvested,” Amoko explained.

This is where the PDM story intersects with Uganda’s wider agricultural economy. The government’s own current description of the programme increasingly emphasizes productivity, value addition and market access rather than simply disbursing money.

The challenge is that a household cannot create a market simply because it has received a loan. If many beneficiaries are producing the same commodity at the same time, prices can fall. If roads are poor or buyers are distant, transport costs can consume profits. If production is seasonal, income may not arrive when loan repayment is due. And if the money arrives late, the enterprise may miss the production window altogether. These are not purely questions of individual behavior. They are questions about the ecosystem surrounding household enterprise.

A business without a notebook.

The monitoring exercise found that 43 beneficiaries had never received training. Another 64 said they had never been visited by Parish Chiefs, PDM SACCO leaders or Agricultural Extension Officers. That means a significant number of beneficiaries were attempting to run publicly financed enterprises with limited formal support.

Amoko said most beneficiaries were being extorted because of ignorance and limited sensitization. He also argued that many beneficiaries were illiterate and therefore needed continuous training and monitoring.

The national Auditor General’s findings point to a similar problem. The 2025 audit cited limited guidance and capacity for beneficiaries, inadequate sensitization on approved business plans, weak supervision and monitoring, and problems with the PDM Information System as factors affecting implementation.

Earlier national audits had also raised concerns about the program’s institutional systems. The 2024 Auditor General’s report found that household-level PDM data collection had reached 79.93 percent, while population registration stood at 46.30 percent at the time of the review. It also found that 2,985 SACCOs in 127 local governments did not have registered offices on their documents, while 567 SACCOs in 41 local governments had registered offices that did not exist.

These findings matter because a revolving fund depends on more than money. It depends on records; on people knowing the rules; on institutions knowing where the money went and; on someone following up when an enterprise begins to fail.

As Aserua observes, many groups were formed specifically for PDM rather than growing from existing economic relationships.

“Most groups were formed for the purpose of the project. They were not existing groups,” she said.

The distinction may appear technical, but it has practical consequences.

A group formed simply because a government programme requires one may not necessarily have the trust, history, business model or internal systems of an established enterprise group.

The national programme has also struggled with targeting and profiling. The Auditor General previously found that PDM lacked a comprehensive database of all subsistence households and that registration and profiling had faced challenges in identifying eligible beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, the government has continued to invest in digital systems intended to improve targeting and accountability.

The Ministry of Finance says the PDM Information System is used to register eligible beneficiaries, while IFMIS tracks transfers and Wendi facilitates direct disbursement to beneficiaries’ mobile phones. Government says it has recruited 14,133 Wendi agents and distributed 27,100 tablets for registration and monitoring.

The Office of the Prime Minister also announced in May 2026 the rollout of interactive PDM dashboards to districts, designed to provide real-time visibility into SACCO disbursements and beneficiary uptake.

The question for places like Adjumani is whether these systems will eventually translate into stronger follow-up at household level. The money that allegedly disappears before reaching the enterprise

The CSBAG monitoring uncovered another sensitive issue.

Sixty-four of the 94 respondents said they had paid between Shs 50,000 and Shs 150,000 for services before receiving the money or being selected.

However, Dr Mamawi Godfrey, the PDM Focal Person, says extortion is criminal but noted that beneficiaries often fail to provide evidence. He said leaders in Pakele and Itirikwa had previously been prosecuted for extortion and illegal payments. The allegations are particularly significant because national audits have identified similar risks.

The Auditor General’s 2024 assessment documented cases nationally involving alleged kickbacks, diversion and irregular handling of PDM funds. An earlier audit also found that about Shs 30 billion had been sent to 3,214 unregistered or “ghost” SACCOs, contrary to programme guidelines.

The lesson is not that every PDM beneficiary or official is involved in wrongdoing. Rather, the recurring allegations demonstrate why strong systems for reporting, verification and evidence are necessary.

In Adjumani, Dr Mamawi said beneficiaries should report cases where people use the identities of deceased persons to access funds.

He also clarified that the Shs 500,000 provided for SACCO operations is public money intended for operations and not personal money for Parish Chiefs or SACCO board Chairpersons.

The refugee question.

Another issue raised during the Adjumani meeting was the alleged participation of refugees in the programme.

Emmanuel Atabuga, a beneficiary, said some refugees had received PDM money.

The claim requires verification against beneficiary registers before being presented as an established fact. It nevertheless raises a wider question about how targeting works in communities such as Adjumani, where host and refugee populations live alongside each other and where household economic vulnerability does not always fit neatly within administrative boundaries.

Four years of implementation in Adjumani.

The district formed 767 enterprise groups involving 15, 340 members across 210 villages and selected 12 enterprises for implementation; but this started with its own challenges.

During the first phase, 11 parishes reportedly missed an early PDM disbursement because of late submission of forms. At the time, the district had transferred about Shs 2.1 billion to 45 parish accounts, while the district expected total FY2022/23 PDM transfers of about Shs 6.3 billion.

By June 2023, the district reported that more than Shs 2.2 billion had been disbursed to beneficiaries’ accounts, while another Shs 3.3 billion had been received and deposited in SACCO accounts.

An earlier Auditor General’s audit recorded that Adjumani had an approved PDM budget of Shs 973.8 million for FY2021/22, including Shs 669 million for the revolving fund. The audit also raised concerns about funds being channeled through the district account instead of directly to beneficiary SACCO accounts, contrary to the programme guidelines.

These early implementation questions are important because the challenges being reported in 2026 did not emerge overnight.

They form part of a longer story about how a national programme has been translated from policy into parish-level institutions and eventually into household enterprises.

The temptation to blame the household

At the dissemination meeting, Dr Mamawi argued that some beneficiaries were affected by what he described as laziness, alcoholism and a failure to change their mindset.

“Improving your family begins with changing your mindset,” he said.

There is certainly a behavioral dimension to any enterprise. A loan cannot generate income if it is not invested productively. But the monitoring findings suggest that the explanation cannot stop there. A beneficiary without training faces a different challenge from one with business experience. A farmer without a market faces a different challenge from one with a guaranteed buyer. A borrower who receives money late faces a different production cycle from one who receives it before planting. And a household facing a death or other emergency may make decisions that look economically irrational from a balance sheet but are understandable within the circumstances of the family.

The national Auditor General has similarly identified delayed disbursement, climate and market conditions, weak supervision and limited guidance as factors affecting PDM performance. The real challenge, therefore, may be to understand where individual responsibility ends and programme design begins.

What does success actually look like?

The government says PDM has reached millions of households and has mobilized billions of shillings into parish-level enterprises. The scale is undeniable. But the program’s own structure creates a different measure of success.

The money is supposed to revolve. One household borrows, invests, generates income and repays. The same money then moves to another household. Success therefore cannot be measured only by the number of people who have received money. It must also be measured by the number of enterprises that survive, the income they generate, the loans recovered, the capital that revolves and the households that move into sustainable economic activity. This is particularly important as PDM enters what has been described as a sustainability and exit phase.

At national level, the government is now looking at how the programme can become a more sustainable financial ecosystem. The Ministry of Finance says the focus is increasingly on household enterprises and the transition from subsistence production to the money economy. That transition will be tested at places like Dzaipi, Pachara, Pakele and Itirikwa—not in national reports alone.

What happens next?

In Adjumani, district officials say joint monitoring visits are planned for October 2026. Accounts that had been frozen because of delayed accountability have reportedly been reopened. The district is also calling for greater public reporting of fraud, extortion and irregular beneficiary practices.

For the beneficiaries, however, monitoring must mean more than checking whether money was received. It must mean asking whether the enterprise exists; whether the beneficiary was trained; whether the business has a market; whether records are being kept; whether the money was received in full; whether repayments are being made; and most importantly, whether the household is actually better off.

The monitoring exercise found that 64 of the 94 beneficiaries had never been visited by key PDM actors, 43 had never received training, 27 had no reliable market, 74 had no enterprise records and only 33 had partially repaid their loans.

Those numbers should not be read simply as evidence of failure. They are also a map of where intervention may be needed: training can be strengthened; extension support can be improved; markets can be mapped before enterprises are funded; record-keeping can be simplified for beneficiaries with limited literacy; monitoring can become more regular and allegations of extortion can be investigated through evidence rather than left as rumours.

At the national level, the government has already begun strengthening digital tracking, SACCO monitoring and beneficiary registration. The challenge now is connecting those systems to the human beings at the end of the chain because PDM ultimately does not live in a spreadsheet. It lives in the households that buy a goat, plant sim sim, open a small shop, raise poultry, start a produce business or, sometimes, face an emergency that changes everything.

Four years after the programme began, Uganda has moved from asking whether PDM money can reach households to a harder question: Can that money stay productive long enough to change them?

For Adjumani, the answer is still being written and the next chapter may depend less on how much money is disbursed but rather on whether the people who receive it are given the knowledge, markets, oversight and economic space needed to turn a loan into a livelihood.

END.