Agnes Asiimwe Konde, a Vice President at Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, says Ugandans, and women in particular need to understand the local market because it is still highly underserved. She says the local market can ably support local entrepreneurs, with locally made products.
Ugandan women have been advised to look at the so-called ‘kameeza’ money as a source of investible capital. Kameeza is a cash daily subsistence allowance that typical Ugandan husbands leave their Women in the morning before they go to work. Some smart women have become rich by saving small bits of kameeza money and investing it quietly.
The advice is coming following the release of a report that shows that enterprises run by women in Uganda were more hit by the Covid 19 pandemic and its effects, than the businesses run by their male counterparts, according to studies.
This was mainly due to the socio-economic effects of the pandemic on the community and the economy as a whole, with men affected differently from women.
The businesses and incomes of women were thus more likely to be hit because they were more vulnerable to spending on home needs than the incomes for men, especially in micro and small enterprise households.
Women have testified that their husbands abandoned them during the lockdown and has to take on the responsibility of feeding the rest of the family.
According to a study by Microsave Consulting Ltd, a global financial research firm, the average monthly incomes for MSEs which stood at 900,000 shillings for both men and women at the beginning of the pandemic, fluctuated differently over the next two years.
In the first lockdown in 2020, the incomes generally declined to 450, 000, and remained stable for men through the second lockdown.
However, for women, there was a further decline in the second lockdown to an average of 300,000 shillings.
Following the easing of the restrictions in the economy, according to the study, female-owned micro and small business earn 450,000 shillings compared to the male-owned ones at 600,000 monthly.
Dan Kasirye, the resident Representative of the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank says women entrepreneurs need special support because there are several special challenges especially related to culture, that limit them.“Studies have revealed that access to finance barriers, cultural norms, and other unfavourable regulations significantly limit the success of women-run enterprises; IFC is pleased to collaborate with Stanbic Bank, a market leader in Uganda, to champion […]
