In March, President Museveni launched a campaign that would see female entrepreneurs across Uganda benefit through a grant. The 5 year project called Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) is aimed at supporting women entrepreneurs in the country.
The three implementing agencies on Tuesday met with a group of women entrepreneurs and took them through how the project will support the women. The workshop took place at Hotel Africana in Kampala.
Mr Steven Assimwe, the CEO Private Sector Foundation (PSFU) said that the project will aim at transforming women from nothing to a stage where they’re financially emancipated.
‘’GROW project is the most important intervention that has ever happened to women in Uganda today,’’ Mr Asiimwe said.
He also said that PSFU has moved from getting part grants and credits, saying that the women groups will get the amount of money they applied for in full, not partly as it was before.
Speaking at the workshop, Dr Ruth Aisha Kasolo, the Project Director at Private Sector Foundation reiterated that the project will empower women and also change the narrative.
‘’There are some jobs that men think women cannot do but with the GROW project, we shall empower women and they will grow in jobs like construction, carpentry and Mechanical works among others” Dr Kasolo said.
She went on to say that World Bank wants to see changes in women and that is the reason why they decided to give a huge grant for a project like GROW.
Mr Enoch Mutambi, the Assistant Labour Officer at Ministry of Labour and Social Development said that the GROW project will elevate women entrepreneurs from micro to medium enterprises and this will target all districts of Uganda.
‘’This is a good project because it is going to solve a problem where it has always been hard for women to get loans as opposed to men,’’ Mr Mutambi said. He further said that the project will benefit about 60, 000 female owned Enterprises, 280,000 employed women and 1.6 million indirect beneficiaries.
The USD217m-World Bank funded project will be implemented by the Private Sector Foundation Uganda, Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [whatsapp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at [email protected]).