GROW project to benefit 1.6mln women indirectly, says minister Amongi

KAMPALA, November 10, 2024 – The Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises [GROW] will benefit 1.6 million women indirectly, the Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development MGLSD], Betty Amongi said in a statement to parliament on Friday.

“The project development objective is to increase access to entrepreneurial services that enable female entrepreneurs to grow their enterprises in targeted locations, including in Refugee hosting districts [RHDs],” she noted.

“The Project will benefit over 60,000 female owned enterprises in Uganda including 3,000 refugee-owned businesses, 280,000 women entrepreneurs and employees including 42,000 refugees, 14,000 host community members and 1.6mln indirect beneficiaries,” she added.

GROW is an initiative of Government of Uganda, implemented by MGLSD as the Lead Implementing Agency, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development [MoFPED] through Private Sector Foundation Uganda [PSFU] as an implementing entity.

The project became effective on January 20, 2023, and is expected to conclude on December 31, 2027. It is funded by a grant from the World Bank [IDA-19)]to the tune of US$ 217mln [approximately Shs 800 billion], which includes US$ 42m;ln specifically designated for refugees and host communities.

She said during project design, analytical studies undertaken revealed multiple constraints that face women entrepreneurs.

“It includes: inadequate business management skills; lack of access to affordable capital; limited access to common user manufacturing infrastructure and negative social norms that affect their participation in business,” she added.

She said GROW project is, therefore, responding to these identified constraints by providing an integrated package of services to help women entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

In this regard, she continued, the GROW Project was conceived to benefit women in business [entrepreneurs] mainly the micro and small business women entrepreneurs by providing tailored skilling opportunities, access to affordable financing and productive infrastructure.

GROW project is World Bank funded programme that aims to support women entrepreneurs transition from micro to small and from small to medium enterprises in line with the Governments NDP III goal that explicitly calls for “promoting women’s economic empowerment, leadership and participation in decision making through investment in entrepreneurship programmes and business centers”.

The project aims to holistically tackle some of the structural barriers hindering the growth of women-owned businesses including financial inclusion, business development services, infrastructure and promoting effective participation of women in the development process.

It collaborates with development partners to deliver technical assistance and capacity building support to the MGLSD, the PSFU and the Office of the Prime Minister to support female entrepreneurs in refugee and hosting communities to improve their productivity using a phased approach to establish and scale up component interventions that will ensure early disbursement and maximise learning in the first two years.

COMPONENT 1 [US$ 42mln]: Support for Women Empowerment and Enterprise Development Services, including in host and refugee communities. This will provide enterprise development services for women through training [technical, life-skills, digital], business advisory services, and enhanced networks for women through platforms that facilitate market linkages and value chain development and seek to change negative social norms that prevent women from engaging in business activities. The trainings will be implemented in coordination with Makerere University Business school.

COMPONENT 2 [US$ 90mln]: Access to Finance for Women Entrepreneurs, to support the transition from micro enterprises to small and from small to medium enterprises. This component will also address the key constraint of access to finance for women entrepreneurs to expand their business

COMPONENT 3 [US$ 70mln]: Enabling Infrastructure and Facilities for Women Enterprise Growth and Transition, including commonuser and childcare facilities to ensure that women have access to supportive economic and social infrastructure.

COMPONENT 4 [US$15mln]: Programme Management Support, Policy Innovation, and Evidence Generation. This will support project management, policy innovation, and evidence generation.

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