KAMPALA – Ms. Patricia Munabi, Forum for Women in Democracy – FOWODE Executive Director has said that women’s economic empowerment, including women’s ability to participate equally in existing markets; their access to and control over productive resources, access to decent work, control over their own time among others, is not only the right thing to do but is core to development.
Munabi was speaking during the national dialogue on women in the economy held at Hotel Africana on Wednesday under the theme “Break the bias: Make women count”.
The dialogue was intended at interrogating the status of women in economic empowerment, looking at the challenges and identifying the opportunities, discussing the coming policy frameworks and also looking at the strategies that can be employed to sustain and fast-track gains in women’s economic empowerment.
Giving her welcome remarks, Munabi said that Uganda has a great and timely opportunity to handle the economic potential of women for a stronger and more sustainable economic recovery especially as the country comes out of Covid-19.
“We have as a country a high labour force participation, we have some of the highest levels of female entrepreneurship in the world. It said that one in every three businesses in Uganda is owned by a woman but we also need to ask, what type of businesses are these? And there is already a lot that has been done that we can build on.”
“We, however, note that there are disparities in education, the care burden on women is very heavy, women hardly have ownership and control of productive resources and there are many gaps that we need to see how we can feel them in order to be able to have more women participating in the economy,” she added.
According to data, Uganda’s average annual GDP growth has been over 5% for over the last 5 years except 2020 and 2021 which were disrupted by Covid-19.
Ms. Munabi, however, said this growth is not always reflected at the microeconomic level due to the persistence of inequality between different demographic groups in society.
“The gap between the rich and the poor in our country is increasing and this should be a source of concern and when you look at who is poor, the women are always the poorer. So, gender inequality had been identified as the most significant and persistent in all inequalities and women are not reaping the same benefits and returns as men.”
Also, Munabi revealed that gender and taxation is another emerging issue.
She says that while existing literature provides evidence that tax system can affect women and men differently, Uganda seems to have the same tax regime that doesn’t recognize any gender disparities.
“We need to critically look into how taxation can be utilized as a tool to reduce the gender gap. World Bank studies have revealed that countries in which women are not as empowered to develop their economic potential usually experience slower growth and more limited poverty reduction. It’s estimated that gender gaps cost the global economy 15% of GDP with figures much higher than the average in developing countries like ours.”
Giving her keynote speech, Ms. Margaret Kigozi challenged women to save money and buy their own land.
“Don’t wait for your grandfathers to give you land.”
Ms. Kigozi, a business lady said, “I am empowered, and this is an important area that we can focus on. The advocacy and training are key to women navigating the economic spaces.”
She said that their role as already established business people is to pull up other women and add them to their spaces and demand that women are brought on board, even in managerial positions.
She, however, appreciated the fact that today women are occupying key positions in Human Resource, Finance Management and marketing.
“We are really excited that in the Private Sectors women are taking space.”
“We, in the private sector, are working on the pay gap and even in our banks, we have dealt with the presentation of women in these spaces, in decision-making positions,” she said.
Ms. Kigozi added, “As women, there is nothing for us without us. In my capacity as an ambassador for SDG5, we need to push to achieve SDG5 before 2030. Where is equality? We need to lobby for affirmative action.”
She tasked the private sector and civil society to work together closely.
Sarah Achieng Opendi, the State Minister of Mineral Development said that the key challenges the ladies are faced with are lack of access to land revealing that only 33% of the women own land in Uganda today.
Secondly, she said it is hard for most women to access credit to do meaningful businesses and also illiteracy amongst the women when it comes to digital space.
“If we can overcome these issues we will be able to break the barriers and women will be empowered economically.”
Opendi is, however, optimistic that the Parish Development Model will be a game-changer for these women.
FOWODE on Monday, March 7 launched the Construction of a 28 billion shillings, IMARA, a Women Leadership and Skills training centre in Kasangati town council.
Munabi told the dialogue that the centre will be able to sustain the work that they do as an organization before she asked them to give a hand in the raising of funds to build it.
