Uganda, March 13 -- I have spent a fair portion of my adult life in debt. I must have gotten my first bank loan when I was 24 years old. By then, I was a young, ambitious graduate trainee working in one of the accountancy firms in Kampala and I quickly found out that my salary - no matter how much I saved - was too meagre to meet my personal financial needs and entrepreneurial aspirations.

When I later ventured into start-up businesses, debt, especially from money lenders and friends, became all too common for me. And over the years, I have become distressingly familiar with that feeling of going to sleep each night, waking up each day, owing many people money far greater than what I can repay. The increasingly difficult economic conditi...