In partnership with PostBank Uganda, the Women in Business Awards (WiBAS) has skilled over 719 Women in the second edition of the WiBAS Handholding Workshop, aimed at equipping women entrepreneurs in West Nile, Acholi, Lango, and Karamoja with essential financial literacy and business management skills as a catalyst for sustainable business growth
The workshop, themed “Handholding Women for Business Sustainability”, builds on last year’s successful inaugural session that attracted over 220 participants, including women-led enterprises, VSLAs, SACCOs, and micro-businesses.
This year 719 women participated, thuscreating a capacity-building platformto enhance their competitiveness, business acumen, and access to key economic opportunities.
The Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs (MIWE) ranked Uganda second globally, with 38.4% of business owners being women, just behind Botswana at 38.5- an indication that nearly four in every 10 business owners in Uganda are women, who make up 52.5% of the labor force.
Lira Branch Manager, Enock Okwara Edwaru, engages with participants during the WiBAS training session in Lira.
However, as a result of gender specific constraints that women face in starting, sustaining, and growing their enterprises, contextual factors such as legal discrimination; restrictive gender norms; endowments such as education and skills; confidence and risk preferences; access to finance, assets, networks, and information; including household constraints, women are failing to grow and expand their businesses limiting financial independence and overall economic development.
Through its partnership with WiBAS, PostBank is tackling key barriers faced by women entrepreneurs by offering financial literacy and business training, raising awareness of government programs like GROW, PDM, and Emyooga as well as customized offerings for women offered by the bank and creating linkages to markets, technology, and financial services.
PostBank Uganda’s purpose is to foster prosperity for Ugandans, revealed Enock Okwara Edwaru, Branch Manager, Lira branch. He said, “We believe that women are the backbone of our communities and a key driver of Uganda’s economic transformation. Through initiatives like WiBAS, we are creating a supportive ecosystem that enables women to move from subsistence-level enterprises to sustainable businesses.”
Through platforms like Wendi, PostBank’s digital wallet, women entrepreneurs can access affordable and convenient financial services tailored to their needs.
Wendi not only offers a reliable way to manage day-to-day transactions but also acts as a simple financial management system that promotes transparency, accountability, and better record-keeping.
As the landscape for women entrepreneurs in Uganda evolves, programs like WiBAS represent the ideal environment to uplift women, which will ultimately lead to sustainable economic development in Uganda.
