Government has started training rural women entrepreneurs on how to benefit from the USD 217m World Bank grant under the GROW project.

This World Bank grant (sh805b) for Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) intervention delivered through the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development was launched in Kampala in June 2023.

On Thursday, the ministry started a series of sensitisation workshops for leaders from Acholi, Lango, West Nile and Karamoja regions in North and northeastern Uganda.

Participants at the workshops in Gulu included all women members of parliament, district chairpersons, mayors, district commercial officers and resident district Commissioners of all four regions.

Joel Acen, the team leader of Grow Project at the Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development said GROW aims at increasing access to entrepreneur services that enable the female entrepreneurs to grow their enterprises in targeted locations in Uganda.

“This project targets women who are already in businesses picked up where they are from micro level to medium level and also it will support and strengthen the multipurpose facilities that are user friendly to women in business,” he said.

He added that this project also focuses on identifying the gaps which are limiting women in doing business and building them structures in the market where they are breastfeeding children and a changing room to help them save time in the market to avoid losing money.

“Grow project also targets refugees in the country who are doing business together with their host community so that they are able to support their livelihood through income generating activities,” Acen added.

Lillian Paparu Obiale, the Woman Member of Parliament Arua district said need assessments were done and statistics show that the women are contributing to putting food on the table and even supporting family in various entities, but above all the code of the household is the woman.

“Currently, the women are the ones doing petty businesses like selling silverfish, charcoal, owning restaurants among others to earn a living, but they are struggling because they borrow money with high-interest rate to operate their business, but with this grant, they will be able to borrow and pay back with a low-interest rate,” she said.

She added that this project has come in a timely when many women need it to support their businesses so that in future, they are able to employ other people.

Several other leaders who addressed the meeting included: Moses Opiyo, the deputy chief Administrative Officer of Abim District and Charles Ichogor, the Resident City Commissioner of Arua.

The state minister for Northern Uganda, Grace Freedom Kwiyucwiny urged the women to take this project very seriously so that they can fight household poverty because the greater North still needs a lot for them to develop and come out of poverty.

“As women, we should work hard like a child of the second wife because we don’t have that privilege of being the child of the first wife as far as poverty is concerned, so we really need to work hard and extra to make it possible,” she added.