Women entrepreneurs set up logistics hub in Namanve
The aim of the hub is to create a vehicle through which women can invest in women and participate in commercially viable investments that simultaneously address the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs.
Breaking ground for the construction project. (Courtesy)
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The Minister of State for Gender, Mary Kutesa Kamuli, has advised successful women entrepreneurs to consider investing in the logistics hub whose construction is being spearheaded by the Uganda Women Entrepreneurs Association Limited in Namanve Industrial Park.
She made the call on Tuesday evening during the ground-breaking ceremony of the Logistics hub for women entrepreneurs under UWEAL.
The aim of the hub is to create a vehicle through which women can invest in women and participate in commercially viable investments that simultaneously address the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs.
Currently, much of UWEA work in women’s economic empowerment has understandably concentrated on training women, mobilising them into associations, improving their businesses and connecting them to opportunities.
She added that the hub will create structured opportunities through which women can invest their capital in commercially viable assets, earn returns, and at the same time create opportunities for other women to grow.
“We can build investments that make commercial sense while simultaneously creating jobs, strengthening women-owned businesses, providing infrastructure and expanding women’s participation in Uganda’s economy.
I encourage women who have built successful businesses, women professionals, women executives, women in the diaspora and women who have accumulated savings and capital to look seriously at the opportunities being developed through the UWEAL Investment Company,” she added.
“A woman may produce grain in Gulu, coffee in Bugisu, dairy products in the cattle corridor, crafts in another district, or manufactured products in Kampala, but she still requires somewhere to aggregate, store, package and connect those products to markets. This facility must become more than a warehouse. It must become a platform for women's businesses to grow,” Kasenene said.
She added the facility will also provide services like warehousing, aggregation, connect producers to markets and also provide Common Use Facilities where women who are not yet able to purchase their own machinery can access shared processing, packaging, standards and production infrastructure.
“That is particularly important at the transition point between a micro or cottage enterprise and a fully industrialised business. A woman should not fail to grow simply because she cannot immediately afford an entire factory. We are providing the bridge,” she added.
Santa Joyce Laker, representing the Gulu UWEAL chapter, said the ground-breaking ceremony for the hub will change women’s mindset from merely paying for the services to women investing in and owning part of assets in the hub that provide the needed services.
Women entrepreneurs across Uganda produce goods every day, but many of us still struggle with storage, aggregation, logistics, distribution and access to larger markets. “This Hub will provide a home for women's goods, a place where products can be aggregated, stored and connected more efficiently to markets,” she said.