By Julius Mugaga Tukacungurwa/Umoja Standard.
Kololo, Uganda: On Wednesday, 21/June/2023 Uganda’s Minister for Gender Labour and Social Development Hon. Betty Amongi Ongom Akena spearheaded the National Rollout and Sensitization session of the Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) Project – a National project financed by the World Bank to the tune of US$217 Million.
This will cover the entire and is an accelerator project for women enterprise development that will build on the achievements so far made by the ruling Government in women economic empowerment.
(L-R) Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja matches with Gender Minister Betty Amongi at Kololo Indendence Ground during sensitization session of the Grow Project. Photo by Abbey Ramadhan.
This will be a five-year project that will close on 31 st December 2027 envisioned to transition 35,000 micro and 4,000 small women enterprises to small and medium enterprises respectively and create 295,000 direct jobs and 1,180,000 indirect jobs.
It is evident that that with Uganda’s population of about 45 million people with women and girls constituting 51% compared to 49% of men and boys, women are more vulnerable because of the gender biases arising out of the traditional and cultural norms due to being less represented in the economic domain of the country.
Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) data indicate that, in the labour market, the labour force participation rate for women is 39% compared to 58% for men; implying that only four in ten working age women are active compared to 6 in every 10 men. It further indicate that unemployment for women is higher at 16.5% compared to that of men (10.4%), with female youths suffering the greatest blunt (20.4%) translating that sustaining livelihoods is more difficult for women than men and the employed few earn almost a half of the earnings of men. The medium annual earnings for females in Uganda stand at UGX 1,680,000 compared to men at UGX 3,000,000.
It is revealed that Sixty four percent (64%) of the working women are independent workers majority of whom (56%) operate as own account workers while only 8% operate businesses and employ other people hence making Uganda to be with the highest number of women business ownership in Africa (24-44% of all businesses) many of which are micro and small and most of them do not grow to transition from micro to small or small to medium.
The events above then pushed the Ministry to the World Bank for financing the project dubbed the Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) that arises out of the need to respond to the needs of women entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses, sustain their self- employment and also create more jobs with an objective is to increase access to services that enhance transition of female owned businesses from micro to small and from small to medium enterprises and empowering women enterprises in high growth sectors with potential to create more jobs and lift many people out of poverty
And for the success of the project therefore, Gender Ministry held workshop to sensitize participants who included Members of Parliament, Ministers and line stakeholders to understand the Project and mobilize their constituents for Grow project implementation.
Government of the Republic of Uganda received a Grant from the World Bank which are administered by the International Development Association (IDA) (the “Bank”) towards implementation of the (GROW) Project.
The Project is being implemented jointly by (MGLSD) and Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU)
