Public Private Partnerships— Gender Promoting Gender Equity Entrepreneurship The Gender and Growth Assessment for Uganda Markets 62635 Research suggests that Ugandan women are highly entrepreneurial, contribute very significant amounts of labor to Figure 1. Enterprises that Responded the Ugandan economy (although much of this is unpaid), and Government Officials have "Intefered" are extremely credit-worthy. Women contribute around 50% with their Businesses of GDP and comprise 39% of businesses with registered 43% Female-headed premises. Yet their businesses remain small and employ fewer 40% 25% Enterprises workers. So what is constraining Ugandan women from 20% All Enterprises contributing more to private sector-led growth in Uganda? 0% At the request of Uganda's Minister of Finance, the Gender and Growth Assessment (GGA) for Uganda sought to answer this question. The GGA was a result of a consultative process that involved stakeholders in public and private sectors. Through Some of the key results of the GGA are: this process, the report not only identified issues and solutions that mattered to both sectors but it also fostered public-private ¾ GGA recommendations have been incorporated into dialogue. The GGA identified specific legal and administrative Uganda's Medium Term Competitiveness Strategy 2005-9 barriers to investment that have a gender dimension and and the National Gender Strategy 2005-2014. suggested that Uganda could gain as much as 2% growth per ¾ The Companies Act is being redrafted in line with world annum by addressing gender inequalities. Some of the key best practice as a result of the GGA. findings and recommendations are: ¾ GEM has developed this pilot GGA Approach as a tool to assist governments to mainstream gender issues in their ¾ Barriers to formalization of a business appear to have a private sector development strategies. The GGA Approach disproportionate effect on female entrepreneurs, and in provides guidelines for analysis of the linkages between some cases create an absolute barrier to their ability to gender issues and private sector development, and for formalize their businesses. taking reforms forward through a 4-step process of ¾ Land allocation practices operate as a fundamental diagnostic, advocacy and awareness-raising of gender issues, constraint to female entrepreneurs, especially in relation to solution design, and implementation. Work is underway to access to credit. While there is scope for amending the extend this approach across Africa through the NEPAD Land Act, the Succession Act and the Divorce Act to give Investment Climate Facility. women enhanced rights over land, the key issue is the inability of many women to enforce even the rights they The Gender and Growth Assessment for Uganda currently have. Workshop on Advocacy and Public-Private Dialogue ¾ Women face barriers in using non-land assets that they may have as collateral because of the undeveloped system of Following a formal launch of the GGA in May 2005, IFC Gender personal / moveable property securities law. Entrepreneurship Markets (GEM) and Uganda's Council for ¾ Poor people in general, and women in particular, lack Economic Empowerment for Women of Africa organized a 2- information about their legal rights and access to day workshop for key women's business and advocacy groups mechanisms satisfactorily to enforce them. Reliance on the and government contacts. The goal was to inform them about LC Court system for commercial dispute resolution puts worldwide best practice in public-private dialogue and help women at a particular disadvantage because of traditional them design strategic action plans to take forward the GGA attitudes and customary law applied. recommendations. The workshop provided an excellent opportunity to strengthen dialogue and understanding between IFC ENVIRONMENT & SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT I GENDER ENTREPRENEURSHIP MARKETS (GEM) The workshop sharpened my perception of advocacy. It was useful in this gender project but also in my day-to-day advocacy role in investment promotion. - Workshop Participant Using the frameworks discussed during the workshop, the participants agreed to create an initiative to take the GGA recommendations forward. They defined key target areas and goals to be accomplished over the next nine months (prior to the presidential election), and champions to help with the marketing strategy and media attention. The workshop was women's business associations and government representatives thus a successful example of engaging stakeholders in public- while also encouraging the participants to engage in needed private dialogue and giving them the necessary tools to engage gender reforms. in future reform efforts. GEM has used the workshop materials to develop a tool for conducting public-private dialogue and Led by an international expert in public-private partnerships, advocacy workshops. A user-friendly CD contains relevant the presentations focused on: materials that can be drawn upon in designing future workshops. ¾ How to build effective public-private partnerships; ¾ Conducting stakeholder management and communication; ¾ Sharing best practice examples from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe; ¾ Designing reform approaches. The presentations were followed by discussions on how to apply the tools to the Ugandan context to move forward the necessary reforms identified in the GGA. The feedback form revealed that 100% of the participants found the workshops either 'useful' or 'extremely useful' in increasing their knowledge about international advocacy and in providing suggestions for follow-up action. Recognizing that aspiring businesswomen are often prevented from realizing their economic potential because of gender inequality, IFC launched the Gender-Entrepreneurship-Markets (GEM) initiative in December 2004. The program aims to mainstream gender issues into all dimensions of IFC’s work, while at the same time helping to better leverage the untapped potential of women as well as men in emerging markets. If you would like more information on IFC GEM’s work, please visit our website at: http://www.ifc.org/GEM or contact: Amanda Ellis Program Manager International Finance Corporation 2121 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20433, USA Tel 1.202.473.1028 Email GEM-info@ifc.org ENVIRONMENT & SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT I GENDER ENTREPRENEURSHIP MARKETS IFC ENVIRONMENT & SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT I GENDER ENTREPRENEURSHIP MARKETS (GEM)