1.0    Areas of Operation: WENIPS operates in the whole of West Nile Region: in Adjumani, Arua, Koboko, Maracha-Terego, Moyo, Nebbi and Yumbe districts. WENIPS head office is in Nebbi District with a Branch Office/Business Information Centre in Arua District.

2.0 Services offered by the Company

The services that are delivered by WENIPS in the above-mentioned districts are aimed at accelerating the economic empowerment of the poor while at the same time addressing crosscutting issues of gender environment, conflict resolution, Ethics & integrity and management and HIV/AIDS. WENIPS has three core services offered as follows:

2.1 Business Development Services (BDS)

Business development services (BDS) are support offered by the company to micro and small enterprises, and commercial farmers including beekeepers, to enable them improve their performance and competitiveness. There are three complementary sets of generic Business development services, namely:

a) Entrepreneurship Skills Development Training: In this training, participants develop critical characteristics of successful entrepreneurs, learn how to improve on current businesses, identify good business opportunities, and make simple business plans that will direct them to success.

b)      Micro enterprise/Business management training: that enables participants to manage their business professionally, and in a competitive and profitable way. Several business management trainings are offered including:

• Basic Record keeping – helps participants to identify, appreciate, prepare and keep basic business records for participants business.
• Financial Management for micro enterprises – building on basic record keeping, this helps participants to manage participants’ money well/ profitably, in addition to supervising participants accountant by understanding and interpreting well the accounts that participants accounts personnel prepare.
• Basic Marketing Skills – enables participants to identify the right customers, deals in the right products, set the right prices for participants’ goods and services, and sell participants products for profit.
• Customer Care training – opens participants eyes to the secret on not only getting new customers, but also retaining and pleasing old ones for participants business success and sustainability.
• Human Resource Management – that enables participants to plan for, recruit, retain, and train and develop the right people for participants business or organizational success; and when and how to remove non-performing employees to avoid business failure.
• Farming as a business (or agribusiness development and management) – enables participants to do agriculture on a commercial basis instead of doing it for subsistence purposes only. This course blends together key concepts and practice in both agriculture and business.
• Other tailor- made business training developed according to participants business needs.

c) Business mentoring and counseling

These are follow-up support services and they augment the various trainings above. The clients are given:

• Business advice relating to the performance of the business;
• On-the-job technical support related to previous training;
• Business diagnostics to identify constraints to profitability and growth.

d) Business Advisory and Consultancy services

These are specialized tailor-made services delivered strictly on commercial basis to individual   entrepreneurs to enable them plan or manage their businesses well. Services provided include:

• Market surveys/ Research
• Preparation of final accounts
• Auditing of already prepared final accounts
• Proposal writing
• Business plan writing

2.2 Micro Finance Services

Microfinance services offered are categorized under core areas, which include: 

(a) Promotion of Microfinance Organizations (MFOs):  WENIPS targets specifically Tier Four microfinance organizations (MFOs) that include Savings and credit cooperative organizations (SACCOs) or Village savings and credit institutions (VSCIs), and village savings and loan associations (VS&LAs).

Services Offered to SACCOs/VSCIs include mobilization for formation of SACCOs/VSCIs, management and governance trainings for SACCOs/VSCIs, performance monitoring, resource mobilization, product development and refinement, technical backstopping and auditing, and linkages for support for SACCOs/VSCIs.

VS&LAs are informal financial groups that target the marginalized poor who cannot easily access financial services offered by the more formalized SACCOs/VSCIs. The services offered by WENIPS includes mobilization for formation of VS&LAs, training groups in VA&LA methodologies, supervisions of formed groups and monitoring and evaluation of their performance. The goal of VS&LAs is to build the capacity of community groups so that they are able to increase household security through accumulation of assets {cash and property} through savings, basic insurance services, and to offer loans to members for productive and emergency purposes.

(b) Financial extension Services (FES): these were delivered to the communities through Financial Extension Workers (FEWs) in Nebbi District in partnership with Microfinance Outreach Plan (MOP). The Programme was intended to generate demand for financial services, link the rural communities to financial service providers, and increase outreach of sustainable microfinance services in underserved areas.

© Consultancy services in Microfinance

These are specialised and tailor made services. They include:

• Preparation of business plans, project proposals, etc
• Preparation of Manuals for SACCOs/VSCIs
• Product development and refinement
• Internal Auditing for SACCOs/VSCIs
• Data collection on outreach and status of microfinance services in the region

2.3    Appropriate Technology and Technical Skills Transfers

WENIPS promotes SPECIFIC income-generating technologies, namely:

• Fruit processing, especially Mango drying and juice processing. This is important because all the districts in the region have plenty of mangoes that go to waste during the bumper harvest.
• Cassava processing into Gari (or dried cassava flour) and other associated products. Cassava is a key staple food crop in the region and the processing helps in storing for longer period and value addition for market.
• Apiculture as a strategic enterprise: this is done by training farmers in modern apiary management, and by also setting apiary and sunflower demonstration sites in appropriate locations which serve as learning points for farmers engaging in apiary.
• Biogas and energy saving stoves: A technology that utilizes cow dung to generate biogas used for household cooking and lighting is of great interest to communities with a lot of cattle but few trees. Energy saving stoves saves on wood fuel hence conserves the environment in addition to reducing respiratory diseases and workload for women.
• Other technical skills include goat rearing, cattle rearing, and poultry beekeeping; specifically under NUSAF programme IN Nebbi District.

2.4 Cross-cutting services offered

WENIPS offers auxiliary services that are designed to address issues of cross cutting nature that negatively impact on people’s livelihood in general and also exact significant direct or indirect negative effects on businesses. Our current focus is on:

• Gender issues
• HIV/AIDS at the work place;
• Environment /biodiversity conservation;
• Conflict resolution and management and post war recovery programme activities and;
• Business information dissemination through Information Communication and Technology.