Women under their umbrella group Uganda Women Entrepreneurs Association Limited (UWEAL) have broken ground for a new Logistics Hub to be established in Namanve, Mukono District,
They have also launched UWEAL Investment Company, which the association says will provide women with opportunities to pool capital, invest in commercially viable ventures and build long-term wealth and In her remarks UWEAL Chairperson Elizabeth Kasenene said the project represents a shift in the organisation’s focus from primarily mobilising and training women entrepreneurs to helping them build wealth through investment and ownership.
“This logistics hub is a symbol of growth, transition and ownership ,” Kasenene said.
“Our aim to strengthen women-owned businesses and increase their participation in investment and asset ownership in Uganda,”she stated.
Ksenene said UWEAL’s experience working with women entrepreneurs had demonstrated that women were already actively contributing to Uganda’s economy as producers, traders and employers, but often lacked the infrastructure needed to expand their businesses.
She further explained that the Namanve hub will provide warehousing, aggregation, packaging and market-linkage services and Common Use Facilities where women who cannot afford to purchase their own machinery can access shared processing, packaging, standards and production infrastructure.
“A woman should not fail to grow simply because she cannot immediately afford an entire factory. We can provide the bridge,” Kasenene said.
She however revealed that UWEAL intends to extend beyond the Namanve facility by establishing enterprises and logistics hubs in districts where UWEAL chapters operate.
Kasenene encouraged women entrepreneurs to move beyond saving and running businesses to becoming investors and owners of productive assets.
“We want women to save together, invest together and ultimately own assets together,” she said.
She appealed to government to support the development of Common Use Facilities and connect UWEAL’s hubs to public procurement opportunities and government programmes stressing that stronger links between women producers, aggregation centres, quality standards and markets could help women-owned businesses increase their production and revenues.
Minister of State for Gender, Labour and Social Development Mary Kuteesa welcomed the initiative, describing the launch of the UWEAL Investment Company as an important evolution in women’s economic empowerment.
Kuteesa said programmes supporting women had traditionally focused on training, mobilisation, enterprise development and access to opportunities, but argued that the next step should be increasing women’s ownership of productive assets.
“Women must not only be trained to run businesses. They must increasingly own the assets on which businesses are built. Women must not only seek investors. They must increasingly become investors themselves,” Kuteesa said.
She said the investment company could help women participate in commercially viable ventures while creating opportunities for other women entrepreneurs.
Kuteesa also said the Namanve Logistics Hub demonstrated that social impact and profitability could be pursued together.
“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,” she said.
She encouraged women entrepreneurs, professionals, executives, women in the diaspora and others with savings and capital to consider investing through the UWEAL Investment Company.
“Do not look at this merely as supporting an association. Look at it as investing,” Kuteesa said.
The minister also urged the UWEAL leadership to maintain high standards of governance, transparency, accountability and commercial discipline to build investor confidence.
She said women should be assured that their investments were being professionally managed, with risks properly communicated and investments subjected to sound due diligence.
Kuteesa further called on financial institutions, private-sector organisations and development partners to engage with UWEAL and explore ways of strengthening and scaling the model.
She noted that UWEAL initiative is anchored on the idea of moving women from financial inclusion and entrepreneurship towards investment and asset ownership.
