Resource Flow: Why Counting Programs Misses What Reaches Founders

On 6 October 2026 a project team told Uganda’s Public Accounts Committee that it had built 22 land offices, and the committee’s chairperson, Patrick Nsamba, asked: “Yes, you constructed the building. But how did it improve the business environment?” His question separates two things ecosystem reports often blur. Resource stock is what an ecosystem can list: programs, hubs, funds, buildings. Resource flow is what reaches a founder, how fast, through whose hands, and what it turns into. Counting programs measures the stock. A hub or funder can measure the flow with four questions asked at the founder’s end.

Key Takeaways

A resource stock is what an ecosystem can list. A resource flow is what reaches a founder, how quickly, through whom, and what it becomes. Each needs its own measure.
Uganda’s Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project spent about US$202.3 million from 2014 to 2024. Its matching grants put US$2.79 million into 312 enterprises, and its registration reform cut the time to register a business from 33 days to about one day.
For 2021/22, Uganda’s Auditor General found Shs78.8 billion of the Shs100 billion meant for Emyooga SACCOs disbursed. The other Shs21.2 billion sat with the state microfinance agency while certified SACCOs waited on verification.
By March 2023 Kenya’s Hustler Fund had 19 million people enrolled, 16 million who had borrowed and 6.6 million who had borrowed more than once. The last figure describes money in motion.
A 2025 Springer volume separates resource availability from accessibility and measures support from the founder’s side; the method transfers to East Africa once its sampling and resource list are rebuilt.
The Arrival Standard asks four things of any program: what arrived, how long it took, through whose hands, and what it became.

Twenty-two land offices and one day to register

The Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project ran in two phases from 2014 to 2024 with World Bank financing, and its team told the committee it had spent about US$202.3 million on land administration, business registration, tourism and private sector reforms. Its achievements were a stock list: 22 zonal land offices, a National Land Information System, a training hotel at the Uganda Hotel and Tourism Training Institute, online business registration.

Two lines in the same presentation measure flow. Registering a business fell from 33 days to “one day and a few hours”, and that saving lands on every founder who registers, every time. And matching grants went to 312 micro, small and medium enterprises and totaled US$2.79 million, about US$8,900 a firm and about 1.4 percent of the project’s spend.

That percentage needs its denominator stated fairly. CEDP was designed mainly to change institutions, and most of its money was meant for offices, systems and reforms, so 1.4 percent describes the design and makes a poor score. Both kinds of number sat on the table, and the committee asked for the second kind. Nsamba also pressed the team on attribution: higher registrations and a claimed US$320 million in non-tax revenue might owe as much to continued government funding of the agencies, and he said such claims “require a clear methodology”. Any flow measure carries that same burden of proof.

Availability and accessibility in a 2025 Springer volume

The frame for this distinction comes from Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Resource Acquisition, Flow and Management, published by Springer in 2025 and edited by Parisa Baig, Elizabeth Montoya-Martinez, Maksim Belitski, Christina Theodoraki and Andrew Godley, all at British and French institutions.

Laura Bidaut, Karim Messeghem and Sophie Casanova ran 21 interviews in 2024 with founders, support organizations, banks and officials in Burgundy-Franche-Comté, eastern France. They define availability as the existence of funding, infrastructure and networks, and accessibility as a founder’s ability to secure and use them. Their conclusion is blunt: “resource munificence does not guarantee accessibility.”

One respondent described the funding rule for support organizations: “They get subsidies depending on the number of projects they manage.” When the count is the payment rule, an incubator has every reason to hold on to its projects. Respondents described support structures competing for public budgets and keeping their files and contacts to themselves; a banker said the ecosystem is hard to enter without a point of entry. The stock in Burgundy is generous. The flow depends on knowing the right door.

A Brazilian chapter by Clarissa Dourado Freire and colleagues, built on five interviews with technology founders in São Carlos in 2019, puts the founder’s version in one line. Entrepreneur A dismissed the idea that capital finds the best opportunity unaided: “you have to develop this social capital so that the money reaches you.” In his account the founder’s work was building the relationships that bring money toward the firm.

A survey of 210 founders, and what Kampala would change

Pauline Brunner and Véronique Schaeffer of the University of Strasbourg measured from the founder’s end. They surveyed 210 student founders in PEPITE, France’s national student entrepreneurship program launched in 2014, with responses collected in 2019, 2020 and 2021 through ten of its centers. Each founder reported which of thirteen kinds of actor had given them which of nine resources, from funding and workspace to legal and market skills. The entrepreneurship center scored highest of any single actor, and accounted for 27 percent of all resources reported; family and friends gave 25 percent; the wider ecosystem of banks, investors, customers and other entrepreneurs gave 48 percent and most of the funding. Nine in ten contributions from family and friends were under 5,000 euros.

The method transfers: ask the founder what arrived and from whom. Three of its assumptions change in Kampala. The first is the sampling route: PEPITE’s questionnaire reached founders through center managers who held their contacts. Many Ugandan founders run unregistered firms reachable through a SACCO, a market association, a church or a mobile money number, so a survey sent through the program reaches only founders it already counts. The second is the list. Brunner and Schaeffer’s nine resources leave out supplier credit and savings-group payouts, and they have no line for money leaving the business for school fees and family claims, a flow a Ugandan founder feels every term. The third is scale. Burgundy’s problem is a generous stock badly reached. In much of Uganda the stock itself is thin, so a count of programs still tells a funder something there, provided it stands beside a measure of arrival.

Why Shs21.2 billion waited for verification

Hellen Masika, deputy executive director of MSC, Uganda’s state microfinance agency, told a parliamentary committee in July 2023 why Shs21.2 billion still sat with the agency. This was COSASE, the committee on commissions, statutory authorities and state enterprises, a different body and a different year from Nsamba’s hearing. It was working from the Auditor General’s finding that of Shs100 billion meant for SACCOs under Emyooga in 2021/22, only Shs78.8 billion was disbursed. Roland Ndyomugyenyi, the MP for Rukiga County, asked why money Parliament had budgeted went unabsorbed: “Failure to spend that money means you are limiting other sectors who want an opportunity to do service delivery.” Masika explained: “This money was not supposed to be touched because it was committed for SACCOs that had certificates of registration. However, the process of verification delayed their access to the funds.”

A registered SACCO is itself a count, and verification is the check that the count is real. Money pushed out ahead of the checks is how a fund ends up with loans like the four, worth Shs4.1 billion, that committee chair Joel Ssenyonyi said went out without proper appraisals. A program judged on how fast money leaves its accounts learns to lend badly. Speed alone is a poor flow measure, and a disbursement target can corrupt a fund as surely as a count of projects can corrupt an incubator.

The concession leaves the counting problem standing. From a member’s side, money committed to a certified SACCO and money in her hands are different events, and the report that counts certified SACCOs records the first. MP Muwada Nkunyingi described the gap from the ground: “The money came and communities were excited that they would receive the funds but now they are hearing that you took back the money.” A flow measure therefore has to carry the lag and what the money became, so that neither delay nor haste can pass for success.

Nineteen million enrolled, 6.6 million back for more

Kenya’s Hustler Fund shows the split in one funnel. In March 2023, a few months after launch, Capital FM reported figures from the Ministry of Cooperatives and MSMEs: Sh24 billion taken up, Sh14.2 billion repaid, and 19 million people enrolled. The Cabinet Secretary, Simon Chelugui, said 16 million of those had borrowed and 3 million had enrolled without borrowing. Customers who had borrowed more than once stood at 6.6 million.

Enrollment is a stock of eligible people. A first loan is an arrival. A second loan after repaying the first is circulation: the fund’s money came back and went out again, which is the closest public figure to what Freire and colleagues call the conversion and circularity of capital. On these figures about 41 percent of borrowers had borrowed again. The figures are early and cover small personal loans, so they illustrate a shape and settle nothing about the fund’s results. For a founder program the matching figure is the share of founders who return for a second resource after using the first.

The Arrival Standard

The Arrival Standard is four measures, taken at the founder’s end and reported beside whatever counts a funder already asks for. It is sized for a quarterly report; mapping every flow around a cohort is a larger job. Our own public figures, 600+ trained and 100+ startups supported across three countries, are counts of the first kind, and the standard applies to them as much as to anyone’s.

What arrived? Ask a sample of founders which resources reached them in the period, by kind: cash, credit, workspace, a skill used in the business, an introduction that led to a meeting, a customer. Brunner and Schaeffer’s nine categories are a starting list; add supplier credit, savings-group payouts and money that left the business.
How long did it take? Record the days from approval or promise to arrival. Registration’s fall from 33 days to one is a lag measure, and so is the wait an Emyooga SACCO sat through for verification. A report that carries the median lag shows delay before founders complain about it.
Through whose hands did it come? Name the path: which officer, which mentor, which introduction. Burgundy’s point-of-entry problem shows up once the path is written down, as does a program whose introductions all run through one person.
What did it become? Follow the resource one step further: repaid and borrowed again, turned into revenue, a hire, or a second introduction. The Hustler Fund’s 6.6 million repeat borrowers are this measure at national scale, and the loans Ssenyonyi found without appraisals are what it catches when money arrives and goes nowhere.

A program that reports all four will sometimes look worse than one that reports a count. It will also know where its money stops, and that knowledge is what lets it move the money again.

A gift carried to the people it was for

Paul set the finish line for the collection from Macedonia and Achaia at the receiving end. He would go on to Spain, he told the Romans, “after I have completed this task and have made sure that they have received this contribution” (Romans 15:28). He also traveled with a man the churches chose to accompany the gift, because “we want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift” (2 Corinthians 8:20). Both sides of the July 2023 Emyooga session sit in that one practice: Ndyomugyenyi’s demand that appropriated money be spent, and Masika’s demand that it arrive through checked hands. The Arrival Standard can describe arrival and lag, yet it gives a program no reason to pay for tracing when its funder pays for counts. Paul had one. The poor in Jerusalem were named people owed a delivery, and the churches that gave held a claim on Paul until it reached them.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is resource flow in an entrepreneurial ecosystem?

Resource flow is the movement of money, skills, workspace and introductions from the organizations that hold them to the founders who use them, measured by what arrives, how fast, through whom and what it becomes. Resource stock is the list of programs, funds and hubs that exist. An ecosystem can grow its stock while its flow stays flat.

Why do ecosystem reports count programs and hubs?

Counts are cheap, verifiable and easy to compare across years and countries, and funders often pay for them. In Burgundy, support organizations received subsidies according to the number of projects they managed. When the count drives the money, organizations tend to hold projects and contacts rather than pass them on to founders.

How can a small hub measure resource flow without a big budget?

Sample founders served a year earlier (ten is enough for a first pass) and ask each what arrived, how many days it took, who brought it and what it became. Record the answers beside the counts already reported. The cost is a phone call per founder each quarter.

Is fast disbursement a good flow measure?

Speed alone is a poor measure. Uganda’s Emyooga hearing in 2023 heard both a shortfall in disbursement and loans worth Shs4.1 billion issued without proper appraisal. A useful flow measure pairs the lag with what the money became, so neither delay nor haste counts as success. Repayment and repeat use are the simplest checks.

Do counts of programs still have any use?

Yes, where the stock is thin. In parts of Uganda with few funds or hubs, a count shows a real gap a funder can fill. A count says what exists, so it belongs beside an arrival measure that says what reached founders, in any report a funder relies on.

Next Step

Ask ten founders your program served a year ago what arrived, how long it took, who brought it and what it became, and set their answers beside the counts in your last report. On a strategy call with Joshua, choose the one flow figure your next report can carry and a way to verify it that keeps the money moving.

Sources and Evidence

Parliament of Uganda, “PAC chair demands evidence of impact from government projects,” 6 October 2026: Nsamba’s question, CEDP spend of about US$202.3 million, 22 zonal offices, registration time, matching grants to 312 enterprises worth US$2.79 million, the attribution challenge.
Eagle Online, “Microfinance body blamed for failure to spend Shs21b Emyooga funds,” 27 July 2023: Auditor General figures for Emyooga in 2021/22 (Shs100 billion meant, Shs78.8 billion disbursed, Shs21.2 billion unabsorbed), the COSASE hearing, Masika’s explanation, Ndyomugyenyi’s, Nkunyingi’s and Ssenyonyi’s remarks.
Capital FM, “Hustler Fund disbursement grows to Sh24bn in three months,” 23 March 2023: enrollment, borrowing, repeat borrowing and repayment figures for Kenya’s Hustler Fund.
Bidaut, Messeghem and Casanova, “Local Policies and Institutional Frameworks: Shaping the Landscape of Resource Accessibility in the Burgundy Entrepreneurial Ecosystem,” Springer 2025, ch. 5: availability against accessibility, 21 interviews in 2024, subsidies tied to project counts.
Brunner and Schaeffer, “Which Actors Provide which Resources to Student Entrepreneurs in Entrepreneurial Ecosystems?” Springer 2025, ch. 4: founder-side survey of 210 PEPITE student founders, shares of resources by actor.
Freire, Sacomano Neto, Fischer and Anderson, “Mobilization, Conversions and Circularity of Entrepreneurial Capitals in Entrepreneurial Ecosystems,” Springer 2025, ch. 7: capital conversion and circulation among São Carlos founders, Entrepreneur A’s line.
Baig, Montoya-Martinez, Belitski, Theodoraki and Godley (eds.), Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Resource Acquisition, Flow and Management, Springer 2025: the volume and its resource flow frame.
Romans 15:25-28 and 2 Corinthians 8:19-21 (NIV), Bible Gateway: Paul’s collection, its companion and its completion on receipt.