The Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) project’s steering committee conducted its first meeting on August 22, 2023, and decided to expedite execution.
The committee, which was led by Mr. James Ebitu, the acting permanent secretary for the ministry of gender, labour, and social development, approved the project’s work plan, budget, and project operation manual.
Various ministries, departments, agencies, and members of the private sector are represented on the Steering Committee, which Mr. Ebitu emphasised as playing a crucial role in the project’s governance by coordinating policy actions, supervising financial risks, suggesting mitigating measures, and offering strategic guidance for all-encompassing implementation.
The initiative, which is supported by a USD 217 million grant from the World Bank, was declared effective in January, according to Mr. Alex Asiimwe, the Commissioner of Labour, Industrial Relations, and Productivity, who serves as the national project coordinator. Since that time, a number of significant milestones have been reached. He listed the major accomplishments to date, including the project’s national launch by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni on International Women’s Day in Kiruhura, the national rollout held at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds, the creation of the Steering Committee, and the receipt of funding to begin implementation.
He defined GROW as a special initiative that will provide an integrated package of services for female entrepreneurs, including services for enterprise growth and empowerment, access to financing, infrastructure for gender equality at the workplace, and programme management.
The approach includes establishing and strengthening networks for female entrepreneurs at the district, sub-regional, regional, and national levels. The plan also calls for the delivery of trade and sector development services including marketing, branding, export certification, the creation of product value chains, and climate-smart production systems. These services will enrich training sessions for women’s entrepreneurship.
Other interventions for women entrepreneurs include the provision of work placements to foster experience and employability, competitive business grants, the establishment of credit lines through commercial banks, as well as the creation of multipurpose enterprise and productivity centres along with common-user facilities.
According to Commissioner Alex, the project’s design calls for the construction or renovation of facilities that are accessible to people of both genders, such as marketplaces and trading hubs created with female entrepreneurs in mind.
Along with this, amenities including child care centres, restrooms, nursing areas, digital access points, and training rooms are being built, upgraded, or outfitted.
Up to 60,000 women-owned companies, including 3,000 firms owned by refugees, are among the targets of the programme, which aims to empower them. 280,000 female business owners and employees, including 42,000 refugees and 14,000 members of the host community, are anticipated to be the direct beneficiaries. Through its service offerings, the initiative hopes to indirectly affect an estimated 1.6 million people in addition to its immediate target audience.
Over the course of the project’s five-year lifespan, up to 295,000 direct jobs and 1,180,000 indirect jobs are envisaged, while 35,000 microenterprises and 4,000 small women-owned firms are anticipated to grow into small and medium-sized enterprises, respectively.
The Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development is in charge of overseeing the project’s execution, with assistance from the Private Sector Foundation Uganda.
