Inclusive Financing for Women’s Leadership and Economic Empowerment in Uganda
Inclusive financing empowers women by enhancing their leadership potential, and economic independence through increasing their influence in decision-making processes, facilitating entrepreneurship, fostering community development, developing leadership skills, and building resilience against economic challenges. These factors collectively contribute to a more equitable society where women can lead effectively and be economically empowered. Uganda has made progress in making sure that there is inclusive financing for women and has gone ahead to put in place programs to that effect. However, despite progress being made in inclusive financing, to foster women’s leadership and economic empowerment in Uganda, women continue to face significant barriers to accessing financial services and opportunities for leadership. This policy brief examines the legal and policy framework, the current status of inclusive financing for women’s leadership and economic empowerment, the role inclusive financing plays in promoting women’s leadership and economic empowerment and the specific barriers to inclusive financing for women and policy recommendations.
The government of Uganda has enacted several laws to protect women’s rights in areas such as domestic violence, property ownership, marriage, employment, education, and health.1 There are several programs designed to empower women economically, socially, and politically. Government-led programmes such as the Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Programme (UWEP); the Youth Livelihoods Programme (YLP); the Social Assistance Grant for Empowerment of Elderly Persons (SAGE), Emyooga; Parish Development Model (PDM); and the recent launched Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) project funded by the World Bank are focused on supporting women’s leadership and economic empowerment. Notwithstanding Uganda’s comprehensive gender-responsive policies and progressive laws in place to protect women’s rights and ensure women’s empowerment, the country still faces challenges in achieving its stated gender equality goals. Coupled with limited funding to the Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development, inadequate institutional coordination and knowledge, as well as insufficient gender-disaggregated data hinders effective policy implementation. As a result, women’s rights remain precarious, and their leadership, and economic participation remain limited by deeply entrenched social norms and cultural practices that discriminate against women’s access to and control over productive assets such as land and the limited availability of innovative financial products and services tailored to women.