The purpose of The Veterans Cooperation and Sector Development Foundation

revolves around six elements which can be highlighted as follows:

 

• To participate in job creation and economic empowerment of up to 20 million Ugandans

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• To support and vouch for each other in court cases and settlement of disputes involving our members, during family functions (including weddings and burials, etc.);

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• To have joint job-training and business skilling sessions;

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• To have collective market bargaining and market access power;

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• To develop end consolidate effective collective resource mobilization and utilization capabilities;

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• To formulate IGA (Income Generating Activities) projects, community development plans, and poverty eradication programs based on the veterans economic development models that will also feed into government policy formulation.

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Methodology and Approach

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Our methodology of approach towards the activation and implementation of projects as herein proposed will be premised on the following key elements:

 

• We plan to create regimented units of organized veterans that are easy to mobilize and manage.

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• We shall approach project work and challenges using a veterans group formation of 200 – 2,000 individuals per group.

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• We also plan to organize the veterans into up to 37 specialized departments and with each department having its own commercial bank named after it.

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• Each department will be required to create income-generating enterprises depending on its specialized competitive advantages or its members’ knowledge, skills and competencies for sustainable income generation and government revenue generation for the Treasury.

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• Within a time span of 4 years, we plan that each department will have created at least 1 million jobs that can easily support and sustain the livelihoods of the veteran’s nuclear families and their other dependents.

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Target Project Beneficiaries

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The groups of veterans and other economically-marginalized civilian groups that The Veterans Cooperation and Sector Development Foundation targets to engage in its job creation and economic empowerment activities include the following:

 

• All past and present Uganda defense and security sector retired and discharged personnel including: pre-independence KAR veterans, 1962-1979 Uganda Army veterans, FRONASA veterans, UNLA veterans, 1980-1985 UD veterans, NRA veterans and militias, UPDF veterans, ex-rebel groups veterans including FEDEMO, UFM, UNRF, WNBF, Holy Spirit Movement, UPA, LRA, ex-Rwenzururu, NALU, ex-ADF, ex-Arrow Boys and Amuka militias, ex-LDUs and other paramilitary personnel, ex-Uganda Police and Uganda Prisons, and ex-UWA rangers.

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• Unemployed youth, rural landless farmers, small-scale artisans (including garage & workshop mechanics, carpenters and welders, building & construction workers) sportsmen & women, etc.

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The defense and security veterans and fringe civilian groups that we targeting are collectively estimated to be about 20 million Ugandans in total.​

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Proposed Portfolio of Projects Activities  

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The portfolio of project activities that The Veterans Cooperation and Sector Development Foundation proposes to create jobs, provide economic empowerment and create sustainable livelihoods are categorized as follows;

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• The development and operation of medium-to-large-scale commercial farms with the aim of producing primary and processed agricultural products for both the domestic, regional and overseas export markets.

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• The development and operation of livestock farms focusing on beef and dairy livestock farming, commercial poultry farming and commercial goat farms with a value-addition technology component to process, package and sell a variety of livestock-derived products including beef, fresh pasteurized milk, yoghurt, cultured milk, cheese, cream, casein protein, UHT milk, ESL (Extended Shelf Life) milk, butter, ghee (samuri), full cream milk powder, skimmed milk powder, condensed milk, eggs, egg yolk powder, and goat’s milk.

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• To promote and preserve animal rights by devising and implementing better ways of animal transportation, slaughter, meat inspection and handling and also enforcement of quarantine checks on FMD, CBPP, East Coast Fever, etc. Also source and provide good quality veterinary care and animal health drugs to the livestock farmers.

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• The development and creation of industrial-scale tree crop farming enterprises specializing in the production of new high value tree crop enterprises such as Hass avocado [with an estimated yield of 87,780 fruits (of 200 gms each) per Acre per annum and a current export market value of over US$ 3.20 per Kg in China; and Macadamia nuts (with an estimated yield of 1,500 Kgs per Acre per annum) and a current export market value of about US$ 55.00 per Kg in the US and China].

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• The development and operation of agro-industries to process, package and sell on the domestic and export markets a variety of consumer products derived from locally produced crops like maize (e.g. fortified maize flour, maize starch, edible oil from maize, and maize syrup); cassava (e.g. ethanol fuel that can easily be blended with diesel), HQCF (High Quality Cassava Flour) for use in bakeries and other industrial applications, ENA (Extra Neutral Alcohol) that can be used directly in the production of alcoholic beverages, glucose syrup for use in commercial food production; and fruits such as bananas, mangoes, citrus, passion fruit, and avocado.

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• Earn forex earnings from agricultural exports sector activity using improved post-harvest value-addition technologies on Uganda-produced primary agricultural commodities that are export tradable (especially maize, beans and simsim) including cleaning, storage, drying, inspection, grading, and quality assurance to enhance competitiveness and value of Uganda’s grain and cereal exports.

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• The development and operation of a range of industries in trades such as carpentry and woodworking workshops, modern auto-service garages and metal foundry workshops, waste-to-energy conversion and recycling industries, cow dung-to-energy conversion industries (through a JV MoU with a South African Company), waste-plastic-to-oil conversion industries, wood-from-waste conversion industries, metal-from-waste recovery industries, paper and plastic recycling industries, paper-from-local-biomass conversion industries, alcoholic spirit distilling and hand-sanitizer making industries, and many other types of industries that will thrive on the abundantly available raw materials in Uganda.

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• To demonstrate the high impact of our agri-technology driven work, we propose  to do extensive upgrade work on  Kisozi Ranch by re-paddocking it, installing solar-assisted water pumping systems on the excavated valley dams, re-grouping the indigenous Ankole long-horn cattle according to cow hide colour and/or horn formation so that it also becomes an agro-tourism site for overseas visitors who are fascinated with our local breeds of cattle. We shall transform Kisozi Ranch into a dual beef/dairy cattle and agro-tourism ranch that will be employing at least 1,000 people and able to generate a minimum of US$100,000 per month (from agro-tourism receipts alone).

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