Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development (MGLSD) has committed to lead by example in promoting the reservation of special interest groups within the Ministry Procurements.
This commitment was made during the Gender and Women Affairs Departmental weekly meeting on the 14th August, 2023 where AFIC was invited to make a presentation from the study conducted on Understanding the Barriers and Solutions to include Women Led Businesses in Public Procurement in Uganda.
While making the presentation, the Executive Director of AFIC, Mr. Gilbert Sendugwa called upon the Ministry officials to take strong interest in following up the implementations of some of the
recommendations from the study findings.
These inter alia include building capacities of women led businesses to be able to participate in public procurement, mainstream procurement issues into the existing government programs that can support women entrepreneurs and to promote access to information on procurement opportunities within in
the government entities.
The Commissioner of Gender – Dr. Angella Nakafeero, on her part called upon the meeting in the presence of AFIC that the World Bank funded program of GroW could be used as an entry point for the women entrepreneurs to access finance. She further told the department members that it is time the Ministry started preparing the women to benefit from the available opportunities since this was their core mandate.
Assistant Commissioner Margret Kyomukama added that experience has proved women who are trained don’t always have the confidence to compete with the strong brands hence end up not
participating in public procurement. She therefore pleaded with everyone to welcome the draft guidelines in procurement with the reservation of 15% for the special interest groups as this would support the women led businesses.
According to Mr. Mayanja Idi, the issue of delayed payments was affecting all the gender not only women. This was revealed in the study as one of the barriers hindering participation of the women led businesses. However, it was noted that while this was true, it was disproportionately affecting the women more than other gender.
On his part, Innocent said whereas many studies have been made and their findings had some similarity, they pointed out to the issue of most procurement officers being men which was in away a challenge.
The engagement led to a commitment from the ministry to work together with AFIC in a formal partnership to promote participation of women led businesses in public procurement hence unlocking the economic potential that is underlying within the women entrepreneurs.
