Ugandan women still stuck in the informal sector — UN Women

KAMPALA - Although ​Uganda is one of the countries that have created space for women to thrive in leadership positions, economically, women have remained in the informal sector.

This means that their earnings remain lower, and social protection is also limited.

The observation was made by the UN Women Country representative to Uganda, Dr Paulina Chiwangu, during a media breakfast at their offices in Naguru on Thursday. The engagement was aimed at spotlighting impact stories, data, and accountability for gender equality and women’s empowerment in Uganda.

Chiwangu pointed to official stats: In Uganda, nearly 90% of employed women are in the informal sector and on average, these earn  30% less than men across comparable roles.

The inequalities noted are compounded by the burden of unpaid care and domestic work, with women performing almost twice as many hours of unpaid care work, which limits their time and mobility to engage in higher-value economic activities.

As a result, women remain trapped in low-productivity livelihoods, constraining household incomes, local economic growth, and the broader development impact of public investments, noted Chiwangu.

She said ​that while women constitute a significant proportion of Uganda’s agricultural workforce, they own a much smaller share of registered land and productive assets and that financial inclusion gaps also persist, especially among rural women and young women.

And yet globally, women earn on average about 20% less than men, and the disparity is even wider in Uganda, where women earn approximately 32% less than men on average.

“This gap reflects structural inequalities that confine women to lower-paying informal work, limit their access to productive assets and markets, and impose a big burden of unpaid care responsibilities,” said Chiwangu.

Apart from economic space, UN Women noted that women in Uganda continue to face barriers when accessing justice despite the progress made in the legal framework.

High costs, limited legal awareness, distance from courts, and social stigma often prevent women from reporting violence or claiming their rights.

With all this in mind, ​Chiwangu called for the strengthening of women-oriented programmes that will enable women compete favourably with their male counterparts.
This Sunday, Uganda will join the rest of the world in marking International Women's Day, commemorated every March 8.

Angella Nakafero, the commissioner for gender and women affairs in the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, said three new programmes aimed at addressing the plight of women will be unveiled during the national celebrations at Kololo in Kampala.

The programmes are:

▪️  Second National Action Plan on Ending Gender-based Violence in Uganda 2026-2030

▪️ National Strategy on Ending Female Genital Mutilation in Uganda

▪️Gender and Equity Strategy for Climate Action