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President Yoweri Museveni is on Friday, March 8, 2024, expected to launch the implementation of the GROW project as part of celebrations to mark International Women’s Day celebrations.

The national celebrations are taking place at Boma Grounds in Katakwi district.

The Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women (GROW) project is a World Bank-funded project under the Private Sector Foundation ganda, targeting women entrepreneurs in Uganda.

According to gender minister Betty Amongi made the revelations while addressing the media about Women’s Day celebrations at the Uganda Media Center on Thursday.

The project worth $217m (about shillings 800 billion) is targeting women entrepreneurs already in business but need support.

Apart from advancing women with some startup capital, women will be skilled in different areas through some government institutions such as the Uganda Registration Services Bureau, Uganda Industrial Research Institute and mindset change among others.

Celebrating the day under the theme: Accelerating Gender Equality through Women Economic Empowerment, Amongi said that the project gives Ugandans an opportunity to reflect on progress made by the nation in ensuring gender equality through economic empowerment.

Amongi added that women constitute Fifty-one per cent (51.2%) of the Uganda population while forty-nine per cent (49%) is male, according to the population census of 2014.  By 2023, the female population of Uganda stood at 24.5 million persons.

She, however, added that despite their demographic advantage Women still face numerous challenges. The national fertility rate stands at 5.2 but in the rural areas, the rate is higher at 5.6 compared to 4.3 in urban areas.

24% of women aged 15-19 are mothers or pregnant with their first child according to statistics from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics for 2022.

The maternal mortality for the last seven years is the lifetime prevalence of intimate partner sexual violence was at 36% whereas physical violence among ever-partnered women was 45% (UBOS 2021).

In 2019/20 the national poverty rate stood at about 30%, and although this was lower than the international poverty rate of 42 per cent, a deeper look into the figures shows that poverty has predominantly a female face, especially among households headed by divorced and widowed women (17%) compared to unmarried female-headed households (2%).

Amongi is, however, optimistic that through the various programs and interventions from the Government, such as the GROW Project, Parish Development Model, and Uganda Funds, among others.