Women entrepreneurs

They are now well-positioned to exploit emerging opportunities
Ugandan women are coming into their own. They are owners and top-level managers of a growing amount of business, and their growing confidence and innovativeness is earning them respect, awards and profits. With new opportunities in ICT, oil and agro-business, they should soon be a force to reckon with.
Figures are scanty, as agencies like the Uganda investment Authority(UIA) are only now starting to track the share of women in new and established investments. However, UIA notes a growing trend of men co-opting wives and children (including daughters) into directorships of businesses. This is responsible for a new burst of growth in women owners and managers of formal businesses.

“We have been trying hard to sensitise Ugandan men and I think the message is sinking in,” says Dr Maggie Kigozi, Executive Director of the Uganda Investment Authority. “People are starting to shake off the old suspicion that wives belong to different clans and girls will leave, so any property given to them will be taken out of the clan.”
The change in mindset means that women can now manage and own businesses alongside male relatives. The Uganda Women’s Entrepreneurship Association has a register of 300 enterprises owned by its members. Investment watchers predict that these will explode in the near future as women grow more confident, discovering what business is about and establishing solid role models for younger generations of entrepreneurs.
Other initiatives to clear the way for women moguls have included special loan packages from banks, like the DFCU-IFC Women in Business venture that provides partial guarantees to women to borrow without traditional collateral, easier access to land, and more freedom to work.
Huge investment in skills building, networking and enterprise development by agencies like UIA, UWEAL, Enterprise Uganda, and others. With little exception, almost all women of note in business in Uganda have benefitted from the entrepreneurship training. Unfortunately this support only reaches urban women, especially in Kampala, and misses out the majority (possibly up to 80%), living in rural areas, who survive as subsistence farmers. Replicating it on a large scale will require a herculean mobilization effort, especially in the face of a common hostility among Ugandans towards income-generating joint ventures.
“Everybody wants to do it on their own, especially women,” says Dr Kigozi. “Bring them together and it won’t take long for squabbles and conflicts to start, so we will have to reach individuals.” She says the integration of entrepreneurship training in the curriculum, from primary to adult education, has been a major achievement.

However, with Women’s Day coming next week on March 08, Dr Kigozi urges that there is good reason to celebrate the positive – the vanguard of successful, hardworking women that rule sectors as diverse as agro-processing, education, crafts, tourism,  import-export; and are well-positioned to exploit emerging opportunities in food production and processing, ICT, oil, and others. The entrepreneurs profiled below are in no way the best or most innovative, but they offer interesting insights into the spectrum of Ugandan businesswomen.

Beatrice Ayuru Byaruhanga, Director, Lira Integrated School: Winner of the 2010 EMPRETEC Women in Business Award of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
Lira Integrated School is located two kilometers from the center of Lira town, Northern Uganda, about 350km from  Kampala. A mixed day and boarding school with a population of 1,500 students, it has nursery, primary and secondary sections, and will soon open a university. It has a total of 104 teaching, non teaching and support staff. The school is 9 years old but in the past 3 years has seen revenue grow from Shs150,000,000 to Shs290,000,000 due to increased enrollment, more efficient school fees collection and a DFCU loan. One of the its main attractions is a modern sports center, including a swimming pool, basketball, lawn tennis and volleyball courts, and a gymnasium. Only 30% of the employees are women and of these only 6 are in management positions, largely due to the cultural taboos in Northern Uganda that keep women out of school. A mother of six, Byaruhanga is also a tree and fish farmer.


Isiko Florence, Director, Flona Commodities Ltd
Flona Commodities Ltd is an agro-processing business that deals in the drying, packaging, marketing and export of dried and fresh fruits and vegetables including pineapples, apple banana, bogoya banana, papaya, mango, water melon, jack fruit, and tomato, as well as fresh matooke, avocado, white garden egg, sugar cane, okra, and hot pepper. The company relies for supply on a network of 320 registered small scale rural farmers, mostly women and youth. It exports to Belgium, Austria, Japan, Kenya and Denmark and volumes and turnover have grown consistently over the past 5 years. Sales turnover in 2008 was US$594,796, after the company acquired a loan and bought a modern Hy-brid solar drier from Austria to replace locally made driers. Flona Commodities plans to increase its farmers’ network to 3,000, to increase production from the current 1 metric ton per month to 25 metric tons. “We are striving to be the leading exporter of dried fruits, fresh fruit juice and jams, and have set aggressive goals for the next 5 years.

Ineku Judith Barbara, Founding Director, IJB Real Estate
IJB Real Estate is engaged in construction of low-cost residential and commercial units. At 4 years it is a young but growing company, like its owner, with turnover rising from Shs7.2m per year to Shs24m in 2008. Ineku employs 26 employees, a third of them women, including a chief electrician. The business currently consists of 7, two-bedroom self-contained housing units constructed at a modest budget of Shs 100m. It is not common to find young people Ineku’s age with her enterprise, so eh has become a role model of sorts, receiving frequent requests to talk to her peers about hard work, innovation and business ethics. “I am an honest employer. I pay my staff on time and encourage them to invest their earnings. They give me good feedback about my style of leadership,” she says.

Lukia Tibahwinura Alinda, Managing Director, Treasures Salon
The beauty business is competitive and capital intensive, but Alinda has held her own since 2004. Located at the Shoprite Complex on Ben Kiwanuka Street, with revenues growing to Shs132,000,000 in 2008. Employees have increased three-fold from 4 to 12, mostly women. “In May 2009, we had 550 clients. By July, we had grown to 1,500 customers, thanks to the training we got from Enterprise Uganda. Now we are targeting 10,000 because we know how to retain clients,” Alinda says. “People used to wait for 30 minutes on a busy day. Now it’s 3-5 minutes.” Key to the business’s growth are hygiene, speed, efficiency and sound beauty advice. Perhaps naturally, Alinda’s main attraction to the beauty business was because she wanted to look good.

Ruth Nakasujja Mabirizi, Director, Patrahill Education Services
Located in Wakiso town, Patrahill Education Services started in 2004 and has under its wing a nursery and primary school, with over 250 pupils. In 5 years the company’s revenue has grown from Shs 6m to Shs 70m. Mabirizi is currently dealing with the challenge of high staff and pupil turnover with increased communication and staff training. The other major challenge is the increased cost of inputs, especially food, which has force school fees increase and antagonized parents. Her plan is to increase enrollment 600, buy a school van, build a new classroom block, improve academic performance, install electricity and increase profits.

Julian Omalla, founder of Delight Ltd

The largest juice manufacturing company in Uganda, producing the Cheers brand of soft drinks, as well as a poultry and pig farm, sugar cane, bakery and trading outlets. The company has annual revenues of $3.9 million and up to 2000 employees, with markets in Uganda and Sudan. Twelve years ago, her business partner absconded with the money she had put up to buy stock, leaving her with only “a wheelbarrow to take fruit to sell at the market and a red dress I would wash out every night.”

Josephine Okot, Victoria Seeds Ltd: Winner of the Yara Foundation’s African Green Revolution Yara Award, 2007
Founder and managing director of one of the most successful seed companies in Uganda, Okot operates at the frontline of the Ugandan economy, where 80% of the population relies on agriculture for their livelihood. Victoria Seeds provides high-yield, disease and drought-resistant seeds for Ugandan farmers. Having started out with nothing more than her ambition and determination, Okot has grown her seed portfolio to 60 varieties and now employs 70 people. She has been recognised as a new-generation African entrepreneur, willing to lead, take risks and break new ground in agriculture.