Health cooperatives key to affordable healthcare and economic development – Minister Aza
MBARARA CITY, November 3, 2026 — Health cooperatives in Uganda have a critical role to play in expanding access to affordable and sustainable healthcare while improving economic productivity, Minister of State for Cooperatives Tom Alero Aza has said.
Aza made the remarks while opening a Health Cooperatives Symposium in Mbarara City, organised by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives [MTIC] in partnership with the German Cooperative and Raiffeisen Confederation [DGRV] and other development partners.
The minister emphasised the strong link between health and economic productivity, noting that healthy communities are better positioned to participate in productive economic activities.
“Health is wealth. You cannot be productive without being healthy,” Aza said, urging communities to embrace collective savings and other cooperative approaches to healthcare financing instead of leaving individuals to shoulder the burden of medical expenses alone.
He identified five key priorities for strengthening health cooperatives: affordable healthcare through collective resource mobilisation; preventive healthcare and community awareness; strategic partnerships with accredited health facilities; financial stability and enterprise development; and good governance and accountability.
Aza said applying cooperative principles to healthcare could improve members’ welfare and productivity by enabling communities to pool resources and access healthcare services more affordably.
He also called on DGRV and other development partners to sustain capacity-building initiatives for health cooperatives, stressing that member trust, accountable leadership and value-creating partnerships are essential to their success.
DGRV Programme Director Matina Wels said seven health cooperatives visited in 2025 had a combined membership of approximately 12,000 people and were extending access to affordable, quality healthcare to more than 60,000 people.
The symposium builds on an inaugural stakeholder engagement held in June 2025, which identified governance, membership mobilisation, policy support and strategic partnerships as key priorities for strengthening health cooperatives.
According to the report from the previous symposium, health cooperatives were estimated to be serving approximately 150,000 people annually across Uganda.
Held under the theme “Strengthening Health Cooperatives for Sustainable and Inclusive Access to Healthcare,” the symposium brought together stakeholders to review progress, address policy and sustainability challenges, and develop recommendations to guide the growth and development of health cooperatives in Uganda.
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