The Ugandan government has launched a $217 million approximately shs805 billion project named Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises(GROW) aimed at supporting women entrepreneurs in the country.
The money is a grant from the World Bank and the five year project that seeks to enable women led enterprises grow and transition to the next level is to be implemented by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development.
Speaking during the launch at Kololo independence grounds on Wednesday, the Minister for Gender, Betty Amongi said the project aims at assisting women access capital.
"Most interventions on financing for women target micro and large enterprises leaving a financing gap for those in the middle who want to expand into small and medium enterprises. There is also a poor entrepreneurship culture with many women not knowing how to balance books and calculate profits," this project is meant to address this.
Minister Amongi said there is also limited access to digital technologies with only 44% of women owned businesses able to use phones at any time compared to 62% for men.
She noted the project also aims to change this state of affairs.
The project
The project that runs up to 2027 seeks to see 35000 micro and 4000 small women enterprises transition to small and medium enterprises respectively.
"Emyooga and Parish Development Model programs are meant to benefit those who are just beginning their enterprises but this project one is for those who have already started. For example any woman with a business and wants to expand, export or get certified by UNBS, this project will be targeting you. We also wish to create 295000 direct jobs and 1,180,000 indirect jobs ," Minister Betty Amongi said.
The project will also see 60,000 female owned enterprises including 3000 refugee owned businesses benefit and to this, 280,000 women entrepreneurs and employees including 42000 refugees.
A total of $ 40 million will specifically go to refugees.
The project will provide enterprise development services including training (technical, life-skills, digital), business advisory services, and women's networks that facilitate market linkages, value chain and transforming negative social norms that prevent women from engaging in business activities.
The project will help work on increased access to finance for women entrepreneurs to transition from micro enterprises to small and medium enterprises but also enable enabling inclusive infrastructure through common-users' facilities and childcare.
Amongi said that now that the project has been rolled out, they will be going to districts to mobilise women to benefit from it.
"We ask MPs to support us in mobilizing women to take part but also if you are a man employing a certain percentage of women, you will also be allowed to access the funds. We will support that enterprise of a man employing women," Amongi said.
The Vice chairperson of the board of directors of the Private Sector Foundation Uganda(PSFU) Sarah Kagingo applauded the Ugandan government and the World Bank for the GROW project that she said PSFU will help implement to deliver and change lives of women in the country.
"In order to improve accessibility to financing, PSFU will work with competitively selected Financing Institutions (government and non-government) to increase access to Finance for Women Entrepreneurs. The financing for loans is intended to facilitate the transition from micro enterprises to small and medium enterprises," Kagingo said.
She explained that this intervention responds to challenges faced by women to meet their capital needs for needs for business expansion and growth including high cost of preparing business to access credit from formal financial institutions, risk preferences for women unfamiliar to access credit via formal financial institutions and lack of security for borrowing from local banks.
The vice chairperson for the PSFU board of directors said that through the intervention, women entrepreneurs will be able to transition from one level to another as well as able to meet the desired project targets.
"We are excited about the GROW project and look forward to a harmonious working relationship with the Ministry of Gender, the lead implementer and all the other stakeholders both public and private at national and district levels."
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Speaking during the launch, the Prime Minister, Robinah Nabbanja said by disseminating information to the public about the project will cultivate a sense of ownership among women.
"It is important the Ministry of Gender reaches out to women in all parts of the country to guide them on how to access the funds in this project," Nabbanja.
She said as leader of government business, she pledges total commitment to the implement the project well.
"I therefore call upon implementers to exercise a high degree of transparency and accountability during the execution of this project. The Ministry of Gender and other project implementers should know the task ahead of them is huge which requires hard work and commitment to ensure project goes on as planned," Nabbanja said.
The Prime Minister said government needs results from the project and it will not tolerate poor performance and unnecessary delays during implementation.
