AMFIU is the network association of micro-finance institutions and other stakeholders in the country. It aims mainly at further developing the micro-finance industry through information dissemination, industry lobby, promotion of sound practices among practitioners and industry cohesion. After realizing that there were bits and pieces of information in various places/ documents on the sound practices against which micro finance institutions could benchmark their performance, AMFIU contracted FRIENDS’ Consult Ltd (FCL) in January 2004 to interview stakeholders, assemble data, articulate and comprehensively document “Sound Practices” in the micro-finance industry.

The sound practices were intended to help;

• MFIs serve their customers more satisfactorily and sustainable
• Government provide the right environment for micro-finance business to flourish, grow, and reach out and consolidate
• Donors/ development partners to structure and focus their interventions for maximum impact to both the MFIs and the MFI customers – the poor

FCL accomplished the assignment and presented it to a
micro-finance stakeholders workshop specially called for the purpose. The final document has been published into a book by AMFIU, and it is extensively used as a referral document by MFI stakeholders in Uganda. This has proved to be a landmark achievement for stakeholder reference and bench-marking.