Our Journey

Over the past 25 years of CEEWA-U’s existence there have been several developments and many new actors in the arena of women’s rights and women’s economic empowerment. Partners are also sensitive to the duplication of effort within the civil society space. Uganda has made considerable progress in advancing gender equality and women empowerment in political, economic and social domains over the last 3 decades.  CEEWA- U contributed significantly to the enactment of gender responsive legal and policy framework, and to building gender analytical and advocacy competences among its members who then went on to occupy influential positions in governmental bodies, the Academia and the Banking Sectors. CEEWA Uganda has also achieved milestones in capacity building of women for leadership governance and accountability, business development for owners and groups, modernization of practices for women farmers.

Despite all the progress made in poverty alleviation so many challenges for women’s economic empowerment remain. The increased participation of women decision making position is significant however it has not translated into considerable influence over financial resource allocation.  Very few women have ownership and control over productive resources such as land. This limits their access to credit further limiting the growth of their business.

Women are more likely than men to be unemployed, self -employed or to work in the informal employment sector. Statistics show that in Uganda the productive potential in women and youth of 18- 64 years is underutilized. The majority of women work force have remained in low paying stereotyped vocations and are not exploring opportunity in the fast growing sectors of development. Productivity and returns from women owned enterprises continues to be erratic.  Many women have limited access to skilling programmes and there is a general lack of statistics about the development of gender responsive indicators that can address emerging occupational hazards for women and youth engaged in select economic sectors. In addition socio cultural issues still limit women’s empowerment as well as their contribution.

In view of all this CEEWA-U recognizes that there is still a need to continue addressing gender inequality in Uganda. This process should involve a paradigm shift that will change mind sets. This is somethings that can only be achieved in the long term as opposed to the short term.

Current Work

Our central focus is women’s economic empowerment (WEE) with advocacy targeting enhanced productivity and incomes from women’s economic engagements, and we believe that to address gender inequality issues more effort needs to be devoted to gradual long term but impactful programs and projects that are aimed at changing socio cultural mind-sets that disadvantage women and youth. 

 Core Areas of Focus

• Enhance the capacity of stakeholders to pursue gender responsive programs aimed at enhancing economic status of women and girls, especially the vulnerable.
• Advocate for gender responsive incentives and interventions for employability and gainful employment for women and adolescent girls.
• Promote the growth of sustainable and competitive enterprises, especially agro-businesses.
• Strengthen CEEWA-U’s capacity for self-management, learning and advocacy.

Past Projects

Women Economic Empowerment through gradual mind set changing:

Skilling Women for Employability and Economic Advancement Program (SWEAP)

2020-2021– This project was implemented in Partnership with Sharing Youth Centre, Nsambya and funded by the Private Sector Foundation of Uganda (PSFU).

Outputs 38 beneficiaries – 10 in woodwork and carving, 10 in tiling and painting, 18 in entrepreneurship skills, and overall 16 women were equipped with skills in the construction sector.

Impact – all beneficiaries were accredited by the Department of Trade and Industry and can search for employment in the construction sector. We caught up with 3 of these beneficiaries and found out that:

Namyalo focuses on tiling work and paints as well. She registered with a women construction group known as Mutindo women in construction and through this association she bids for jobs and is sometimes sub contracted on bigger contracts. Nagadya trained in tiling and painting. She mostly gets painting work and finds it difficult to get tiling work because of the biases that still exist in this sector. When she does get work she is assigned small bits in comparison to her male counterparts. Alupo trained in tiling and initially got contracts to tile bathrooms. She developed an interest in plumbing and now focuses on that because currently the market has few opportunities in tiling.

Budget Advocacy Gender Responsive Taxation for Women in Cross Border Trade

2021- In collaboration with the Eastern African Sub-Regional Support Initiative for the

Advancement of Women (EASSI), and with support from Urgent Action Fund (UAF) Africa organised a Budget Advocacy Platform for Gender Responsive Taxation for Women in Cross border Trade. The platform was a 2- day workshop bringing together women in cross border trade to engage with stakeholders on gender issues in customs regime and trade facilitation, and build consensus on priority interventions needed to influence the government’s fiscal framework and the spending decisions for the forthcoming budget process for the period 2022/23 – 2024/25. Members of Parliament and senior technocrats in MFPED applauded the workshop that exposed them to the gender issues in cross border trade and have since embarked on ex-ante gender assessment of tax bills, and effective partnership in the intensification of tax education. In addition CEEWA-U was invited to participate as a member of the working committee on Business Licensing and Regulatory Reform hosted by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

Budget Advocacy for a Gender Responsive Taxation and Local Authorities’ Users

Fees Regime – In collaboration with Southern Eastern African Trade information and Negotiation Institute (SEATINI), CEEWA-U designed and executed the advocacy program for gender responsive taxation regime, funded by Urgent Action Fund for Africa. The program was informed by the findings of a Rapid Gender Impact Assessment of the Taxation and Local User Fees Regime (RGIAT) on micro and small-scale entrepreneurs in select urban markets in Kampala and two border posts, namely Busia and Mutukula, undertaken in November – December 2021.The advocacy was organized under four platforms namely – a validation meeting; a policy advocacy meeting targeting technocrats in all state and non-state agencies; a talk show and a sensitisation workshop for members of parliament during period February to March 2022.