Prime Highlight
- The Bank of Uganda has introduced the Women Entrepreneurs (WE) Finance Code to encourage gender-sensitive lending and improve access to finance for women-owned businesses.
- The initiative is supported by a National Gender and Financial Inclusion Dashboard to guide data-driven financial products and policies for women.
Key Facts
- Uganda’s financial inclusion rate stands at 81 per cent, but women entrepreneurs still face challenges such as a lack of collateral and limited financial knowledge.
- The Bank of Uganda will act as the National Data Aggregator, coordinating gender-disaggregated financial data across the financial sector.
Background
The Bank of Uganda (BoU) launched the Women Entrepreneurs (WE) Finance Code to help women access finance and promote gender-inclusive financial services across the country. This initiative is part of the central bank’s larger effort to support women entrepreneurs, who make up a big part of Uganda’s business community but still face many obstacles.
The WE Finance Code is backed by BoU’s newly introduced National Gender and Financial Inclusion Dashboard. The dashboard will help collect and track gender-disaggregated financial data, allowing regulators and financial institutions to design products that better meet the needs of women. Officials say the tool will also help create data-based policies and increase transparency across the financial sector.
Even though financial inclusion has improved, many women entrepreneurs still struggle to get credit. They often lack collateral, face cultural barriers, and have low financial knowledge. These problems slow business growth, even though studies show that closing gender gaps can help small businesses grow, create jobs and strengthen households.
Speaking at the launch in Kampala, Richard Byarugaba, representing the deputy governor of the Bank of Uganda, said the WE Finance Code calls for more gender-sensitive financing decisions. He noted that the new dashboard will improve the tracking of gender-focused data and support targeted interventions.
Uganda’s financial inclusion rate has reached 81 per cent, with a relatively small gender gap. However, stakeholders agree that deeper action is needed to address long-standing barriers. Government programmes such as the GROW Project, the Agricultural Credit Facility, and the Parish Development Model have already expanded financing options for women, especially those without traditional collateral.
The Bank of Uganda will act as the National Data Aggregator under the new framework. It will coordinate data and work with stakeholders to avoid duplication and achieve better results for women entrepreneurs.
Officials say the launch marks a renewed commitment to ensuring women play a central role in Uganda’s financial and economic growth.