Assessing the Economic Resilience of Ugandan Households During COVID

24/04/202111/11/2022

Diana Ngaira

This phone-based survey conducted between April 2020 to September 2020 over five waves provides a detailed analysis on the resilience of the sample surveyed. It demonstrated:

Lower take home incomes: Jobs returned by September 2020 with over 1 in 3 respondents claiming to work 40 hours a week, but an overwhelming majority of respondents (73%) stated that incomes earned were much less than the same time-period in 2019. Majority of respondents in the Trade, Transport, Light Manufacturing and Services sector report less-incomes. While Farmers in the survey stated that it became harder to sell farm produce between April to September 2020.
Compromised household resilience: Two out of three respondents would not be able to come up with UGX 115,000 ($30) in seven days for emergencies – a worrying note on how COVID-19 has compromised household resilience.
Risk of Over-Indebtedness: An overwhelming majority borrowed from friends and family in the early months of the pandemic straining social networks. Borrowing over digital apps also increased with 15% of respondents having received credit from one. There seems to be a risk of over-indebtedness with 21% of the borrowers of digital apps stating a missed payment in the past 14-days.

The findings above, along with our analysis of the impact of COVID on agriculture, and the agile scenario analysis on the impact of the pandemic on the farming, trading, and light manufacturing community (via personas) that we conducted have strongly contributed to FSD Uganda’s new strategy (2021-2026).