UON WEE HUB UNVEILS THE PRIORITY AGENDA FOR WEE
By Emilly Owiti, July 5, 2022
The UoN Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Hub yesterday unveiled the Priority Agenda for Women’s Economic Empowerment at the University of Nairobi Chandaria Auditorium.
The development of the twelve point agenda has been informed by findings from research studies conducted by the WEE Hub and consultative technical sessions to concretize the critical areas that the findings illuminated. In her quest for the full realization of women’s economic empowerment, the Hub through this agenda seeks to bring women entrepreneurs and other stakeholders together to advocate for legislative frameworks, policies regulations and programs that promote WEE and women’s participation in economic growth.
The agenda unveiled by Prof. Margaret Hutchinson, the Associate Vice Chancellor, Research, Innovations and Enterprise, University of Nairobi reflected findings of research from four broad thematic areas; Affirmative Action’s funds; Women in formal and informal employment; childcare and women’s work and women’s collectives. “The launch of this Agenda is a culmination of research work and consultative meetings with partners and key stakeholders of the UoN WEE Hub” Prof, Hutchinson said
The aim of the agenda is to foster sustainable national framework that brings together women entrepreneurs, women’s organizations, women leaders and partners from counties and national levels for sharing, learning and policy advocacy, to create spaces for dialogue for the women entrepreneurs to dialogue with policy makers, financial institutions and other stakeholders for WEE and to build consensus and ownership of the WEE agenda at the county and national levels
The two-day event that culminated in the launch of the agenda was officiated by the Principal Secretary Ministry of EAC and Regional Cooperation Dr. Kevit Desai and attended by government representatives from the National Treasury, Ministry of Gender, private sector institutions representatives, financial institutions and over three hundred women spread across more than twenty (20) counties. This event was the launching pad to opportunities for dialogue that are envisioned by the Agenda; it provided a platform for candid discourse between banks and the women entrepreneurs on the financial solutions needed and those available to the women entrepreneurs while also addressing the challenges in access to finance and credit, “this is just the beginning of the conversations on access to finance which has been a challenge” said Ms Muthoni who moderated the session.
Some of the challenges that were discussed echo the findings of the study by the WEE Hub on access to finance. For instance, the Credit Guarantee scheme targets formalized businesses which are dominated by male entrepreneurs; 76% of the male owned enterprises applied for credit compared to 71% of women-owned enterprises .The study further reveals that out of these applications 18% of the male-owned enterprises were likely to have their loans approved against 10% of the female-owned enterprises. This was attributed to among other challenges, ownership of assets that is required by banks as collateral. The session moderator Ms Muthoni challenged the bank representatives to explain the disconnect between lenders and borrowers “while the banks say there’s a lot of money, women seated here confirm that they cannot access the funds”. In a rejoinder the bank officials emphasized the need for financial literacy to enable the women to build financial credibility. “Availability of finances isn’t the problem, the real issue is financial literacy and education that will enable women entrepreneurs to build credibility needed to access the available funds,” Ms Edith of Equity Group foundation emphasized.
Prof. Hutchinson commended the UoN WEE Hub for the collaborations and rigorous research that produced the agenda. “As a world class University we remain committed to supporting the work of the WEE Hub and its partners because it is aligned to the University’s mandate to conduct cutting edge research that informs policy decisions for the greater good for the women of this country and beyond,” words which were echoed by Prof Wanjiku Kabira, the WEE Hub Leader and Director of the African Women Studies Research Centre that hosts the Hub. “The WEE Hub will continue working with partners to ensure that we produce cutting edge research that informs policy development for the full realization of WEE.”
During his keynote address, Dr. Desai reiterated the commitment of the government of Kenya to ensure expanded markets and controlled competition for the Kenyan traders “the review of policies such as the common markets protocol shall invoke the right formulation, ensure the involvement of the partner states and promote dialogues on policy legislation and regulation in order to ensure adherence,” said Dr. Desai.
One of the women pathfinders in women’s economic empowerment acknowledged the progress that has been made through the struggles and advocacy by the women “banks previously had very peculiar requirements, during our time a bank could not approve your loan application without the approval of your husband, not even your brother’s consent would be considered, those wo did not have husbands could never access loans from banks,” Mrs Gatabaki said at the dismay of the younger women entrepreneurs. This session enlivened the discussions and put into context the need for continued efforts by women towards women’s economic emancipation; the session moderator Daisy Amdany of CRAWN Trust affirms “women’s economic empowerment is critical for the attainment of full women’s emancipation.”
To ensure the realization of the Priority Agenda, the NABWEE platform will over the next three years, establish a national network for women in business to negotiate on behalf of the women in formal and informal economy, advocate for recognition of care work by women, disseminate policies related to WEE, mobilize women at grass root and national levels to participate in the budget-making process and to negotiate with banks to train small scale women traders to build their capacity to access loans and credit among other strategies. The agenda was developed under the Networking and Alliance Building for Women’s Economic Empowerment ( NABWEE) an initiative by the UoN WEE Hub in collaboration with partners and other stakeholders, among them; CRAWN Trust, TechnoServe, and UN Women. The UoN WEE Hub is a WEE research Hub supported through the funding of Bill and Melinda Gates.
Click here to read the Priority agenda
If you missed the Conference, watch it here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scTQpXCDwpc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6ijnfSeIis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgnsxR4XMPE