By Mulengera Reporters
Through the PSFU-implemented GROW project (which in full is Generating Growth Opportunities & Productivity for Women Enterprises), the government of Uganda continues to support women-owned/operated business enterprises to grow, expand and even diversify into new areas.
Every woman-owned/operated business is eligible to (at the interest of just 10% per annum) borrow up to between Shs4m and Shs200m. Even co-owned businesses, in which women own or control up to 51% shareholding, qualify to borrow money and receive other forms of support like training, skilling and certification under the GROW project.
There are three levels for GROW project loans namely level one (4-20m), level two (20-40m) and level three (40-200m). Funded by World Bank and implemented by the GoU, GROW is a five-year project worth $217m, which comes to Shs850bn in Ugandan money.
It mainly targets to benefit women entrepreneurs who are already engaged in some form of economic activity and aren’t poor enough to qualify under PDM. There is also emphasis on supporting female refugees and other women entrepreneurs in refugee-hosting districts. At least 5% of the money and all the other opportunities deriving from GROW are preserved for female refugees and women in refugee-hosting districts.
Both already existing and newly-incorporated women-owned business enterprises are eligible to benefit. Some of the women enterprises had been existing but without ever engaging with or accessing formal credit from financial institutions.
Through GROW project, such female entrepreneurs are enabled access to formal credit for the first time, which amplifies the Museveni government policy of deepening financial inclusion. Beneficiaries are also enabled to access larger amounts of credit to facilitate expansion and diversification of their already existing business enterprises.
PROFILING THE IMPACTED BENEFICIARIES:
As we illustrate in the following reporting, several individual women entrepreneurs have already been impacted and have been able to expand and diversify their businesses-courtesy of the GROW project loans. Beneficiaries are mainly from Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area and other regions of Uganda like Greater Masaka, Acholi, Lango, Busoga and Ankole etc.
The disbursement of the funds, which must be utilized within the designated period of five years, is being effected by the six Participating Financial Institutions (or banks) which were selected through a very competitive process. They include Centenary, Finance Trust Bank, Post Bank, Equity Bank and Stanbic.
Besides Pride Microfinance, Opportunity Bank and a few selected SACCOs (like UGAFODE, CBS PEWOSA etc) whose inclusion the President directed not very long ago, these six PFIs are mandated with operationalising the GROW Financing Facility (GFF) out of which all these project loans continue being disbursed.
From the reviewed literature, it’s clear that the GROW project overall objective is to increase access to entrepreneurial services that can enable women entrepreneurs grow, expand and diversify their business enterprises.
RELEVANT STATISTICS:
On average, 40% of the beneficiaries of the GROW project loans are first time borrowers; with 62% of the borrowers being married people compared to 30% who are single mothers and 4% who are widowed or divorced.
The other interesting demography that merits being noted is that majority of the borrowers (actually 56%) are aged between 36 and 50 years. 21% are aged 18-35, and 22% are aged 50-75 years. And as of last December, for education level, 46% of the borrowers had at least completed S6/UACE.
Looking at sectors, as of last December, 25% of the beneficiaries who borrowed and took out the money were in agriculture-related business enterprises, 8% in business services, 11% in manufacturing, 10% in construction, and 37% in trade & commerce.
Level one borrowers (taking out between Shs4m and Shs20m) are the majority, accounting for 75% of the monies disbursed as of last December. Level two borrowers (20-40m) accounted for 13% and level three (40-200m) accounted for 12%.
WHO TOOK OUT WHAT?
From the social services the sector, the GROW project beneficiaries’ story is illustrated as follows:
From Wakiso in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area (GKMA) is vocational training school owner Annet, who has been in the training & skilling business for now 15 years. Employing 25 other people besides herself, Annet has deals to train young women imparting on them skills to produce or make soap, bleach, shampoo and to also engage in industrial scale knitting for sweaters.
Currently, this GROW project beneficiary has a contract to skill 682 girls under the Makerere-based Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI)-funded “Dreams Project.” From the GROW project, Annet is grateful to have received an easily repayable loan of Shs75m payable within a period of 2 years and just 10% interest.
The already well-established entrepreneur says that she used the money from GROW to purchase of bar soap-making equipment, which was all she needed at that point in time to strengthen her business operations.
She used a land sale agreement and two guarantors as collateral to secure her GROW project loan. Annet, who already was a customer with Post Bank, is nevertheless thankful to the President for the GROW project initiative.
Innocent, a medical practitioner operating in the same Greater Kampala area specifically under Wakiso district, is another GROW project beneficiary who is grateful to the GoU and its and partners chiefly the World Bank.
The medical professional, who took out Shs20m from GROW, has since the year 2007 been operating two private health facilities in form of clinics. One is located in Bulaga-Nakabugo village in Wakiso district along Mityana Road and another one at Bwaise in Kampala City. She employs four female medical personnel, and also runs a private school as an additional source of income.
Equity has always been her bank and she has ever taken out loans before. From GROW, she was advanced a loan of Shs20m, contrary to the Shs50m she had initially applied and asked for.
She says she is now proud to have productively used the Shs20m loan to replenish and expand her clinics business. One guarantor and a land title was all she used as collateral to secure her GROW project loan.
THE F&B SECTOR:
Yet that isn’t all. The GoU’s GROW project has also positively impacted female entrepreneurs operating within the food & beverages sub sector. One of the beneficiaries is Hadija, a business lady who runs a lucrative restaurant & outside catering business in Nakasero, Kampala.
She started small by vending tea and she says she has been at it for now 30 years. She confesses that she has always operated on loans, making it clear that the GROW project’s isn’t the first loan she has thrived on.
She employees 10 young women to whom she pays a daily allowance. These help with moving around taking orders and delivering food to customers who are scattered all-over the Nakasero market neighbourhood.
A long-term customer of Equity Bank, Hadija says she is proud to have related with and maintained one same loans officer who has seen and supported her grow from the very small tea vending business she started out with. She used to borrow from an MDI before switching to Equity Bank.
She is grateful that under the GROW project arrangement, she was allowed to borrow Shs20m at interest of 10% and with a repayment period of 18 months. She found this to be cheaper and more patient capital than what she had all along been exposed to.
With the Shs20m, she says, she has been able to purchase equipment which she badly needed to add value, modernise and expand her outside catering business. Her residential property and restaurant served as collateral for the loan, besides the two guarantors who co-signed and endorsed onto the loan documents.
Ice cream maker Dorothy of Kawempe Kampala is another jubilant beneficiary of the GROW project loan product. The self-employed lady has been into the business of making/producing juice, ice cops, ice cream and ice cream cones for some good time. And speaking specifically she says this has been her thing for the last three years.
She employees 9 fellow young ladies as temporary workers whose pay is allowance-based. Being a first-time borrower, the DFCU bank customer took out a loan of Shs12m from GROW and was allowed a repayment period of 1 year.
She says she used the money to purchase value addition machinery, which she badly needed for her ice cream business and to also upgrade to 3-phase electricity supply. For collateral, she gave rental property which is in the names of her husband as the registered owner. Her husband also co-signed onto the loan as a guarantor.
Edith, a restaurant business owner from Mbarara City, is grateful for the Shs5m loan she received from GROW project funds. What she started as a small tea vending business in the year 2021 has since grown into a viable restaurant business.
She also offers outside catering and ushering services on top of preparing tea and juice for sale. She employs six workers who help her in running her rapidly-growing food & beverages business.
She is a customer of Centenary Bank where she had her bank account long before getting involved in the GROW project business. She was given a whole year within which to pay back the Shs5m.
She says the Shs5m enabled her to purchase value addition equipment including a juice dispenser, sauce pans, tea bowls and other utensils at the time she needed them most to be able to modernize and beautify her business operations. For collateral, she used her land title valued at Shs60m plus her husband who signed off as the guarantor of the loan.
Gulu City’s Sanyu is another GROW project beneficiary under the Food & Beverages sub sector. She first got into the restaurant business 8 years ago in Kampala from where she relocated the moment she established that Gulu was also becoming an equally busy Ugandan City.
Currently employing 35 workers, Sanyu was given a loan of Shs70m under the GROW project arrangement. She partly used the money to purchase and install furniture to enlarge the sitting capacity of her restaurant in Gulu City and buy other equipment besides diversifying her business foot print into offering accommodation services whereby she these days owns and operates a high-end guest house in Gulu town.
Besides being grateful to the GoU for the GROW project initiative, Ms Sanyu is convinced that the viability of all this investment and risk she took will gradually become clear and manifest for everyone to see and appreciate, as the profitability of her restaurant and guest house business grows.
Mbarara City’s Ms Nuriyat is another GROW project beneficiary. The female entrepreneur, who has owned and operated an auto (spare) parts business in Mbarara City for the last 10 years along Victor Bwana Road, is grateful for the Shs20m that was lent to her and thereby enabling her to remain viable and competitive in this otherwise male-dominated spare parts business arena.
Besides restocking and expanding her auto parts shop by having more stuff so that she reaches more customers, Nuriyat has also since relocated to take up bigger operational space, besides expanding into chicken roasting business, along Mahembe G’ente High Street where she currently has two stalls.
She has been a borrower and customer for Centenary Bank for the last 17 years, which is why there is certainty that repaying the Shs20m lent to her under GROW won’t be a challenge, moreover at 10% interest and in the repayment period of 18 months which she was given.
For collateral, Nuriyat (who continues to be celebrated for effectively and profitably breaking into such a male-dominated field) provided her rental property in the Rwobuyenje neighbourhood of Mbarara besides her husband and sister who signed off as guarantors for the loan.
ALICE’S 200M LOAN:
Yet that isn’t all about GROW project beneficiaries. For Alice, the Bukedi Tororo Municipality-based general merchandizer, wholesaler and construction dealer, the GoU and its partners basically the World Bank deserve all the praises in the world for having come up with the game-changing intervention called GROW.
Alice says she has been an effective business entrepreneur doing her business for the last 25 years and employs four people at her business premises in Tororo Municipality. The four work in her wholesale shop and another 20 workers in her construction business.
She has been a long-term customer and borrower for Centenary Bank, which raised her business pedigree and suitability as such a credit-worthy person, to the level that there was no hesitation lending to her Shs200m under the GROW project arrangement. She remains eternally grateful for the affordable interest and the two-year repayment period she was given under GROW.
She says she used the Shs200m to expand her general merchandise shop and to also replenish her construction business at the time this was very much necessary in especially the post-COVID period. The very experienced female entrepreneur, who used her land title for collateral, is optimistic that GROW’s Shs200m will result into her business expansion and growth in profitability too. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
