AFIC’s study on Understanding Barriers and solutions to include Women Led Businesses in public procurement in Uganda identified successes, gaps and constraints of women led businesses. This is against the progress made in women’s rights and opportunities, a robust legal frame work for affirmative action yet women entrepreneurs still face significant challenges in participating in public procurement in Uganda. As such, it calls for empowerment of women-led businesses as a critical measure for fostering economic growth and gender equality in Uganda. Notable among the challenges were lack of access to information on procurement opportunities, limited access to capital, delayed payments and corruption tendencies among others.
To address some of these issues, AFIC conducted a two-day virtual training on public procurement and existing opportunities for WLBs from the 5th – 6th September, 2023. This was meant to promote women’s economic inclusion through a comprehensive training program to equip women-led businesses with the necessary skills and knowledge to successfully participate in public procurement processes. The training attracted 68 registrations and 50 participants attended the training.
These women entrepreneurs were trained among others; Financial management skills, Preparing a winning bid, existing opportunities for women and a brief on the draft guidelines for the reservation scheme for special interest groups.
Among the outcomes of the training was that participants learnt and appreciated the importance of public procurement for the economic growth of women. “Thank you, for organizing this, I am blown away by the depth of information and opportuniies that are available to us.” Fiona Mwesigwa, a business woman in Kampala, Uganda.
Other outcomes include; Women-led businesses were connected to other stakeholders like Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic development.
WLBs had an opportunity to watch the step-by-step video on the process of bidding for public procurement as well as hearing about the opportunities available for them in various sectors.
WLBs are aware of how to register on the electronic government procurement portal as leant from the presentation made by PPDA.
The trainings also provided an opportunity to create awareness on the research findings on barriers and solutions to include women-led businesses in public procurement.
