Overview:
In 2020, The Wide Web Foundation(WWF) reported that among four countries included in the survey of women’s online experiences, Uganda had the largest gender digital divide.
Uganda on March 8 joins the rest of the world to mark International Women’s Day.
Uganda as a country has been hailed globally for promoting a culture entrepreneurship among women.
For instance, the World Bank lists Uganda among only seven countries worldwide that has achieved gender parity in terms of the number of women driven to pursue entrepreneurial activities.
Uganda’s female labour force participation rate is also high compared to other Sub-Saharan countries. The Fourth Edition of the Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs ranked Uganda at (38.2 percent) of total female business owners – an indication that nearly four in every 10 business owners in Uganda are women.
However, there is concern that most women are still doing business in a rudimentary way, which is affecting their growth.
While many men are prospering and advancing towards sustainable livelihoods, through technology, many women have no access to digital technologies and are falling even further behind.
According to Ruth Asasira, the manager, Women in Business at dfcu Bank, despite the fact that women entrepreneurs own at least 31 percent of all registered Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Uganda), they still face a myriad of issues such as the digital gender gap in an increasingly virtual world, and the mounting pressures of childcare responsibilities, leaving them most vulnerable.
“Women entrepreneurs need to level up and take advantage of opportunities to propel their businesses to the next level,” she says.
“The older and the rural woman still fears technology and to an extent the urban woman. We must simplify technology solutions. Whatever we develop must be simple and accessible,”
Judy Rugasira Kyanda, managing director Knight Frank Uganda
Better use of technology in business for a woman also means learning better working practices from others, better financial management, better ways to grow a business and better access to markets in a cheaper way too, and faster processes to get to a final product.
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in 2019 reported that the gender digital gap in mobile ownership is much larger in South Asia (23 per cent) and sub-Saharan Africa (13 per cent) than on other continents.
In 2020, The Wide Web Foundation(WWF) reported that among four countries included in the survey of women’s online experiences, Uganda had the largest gender digital divide. With an internet penetration standing at Uganda 26.2 per cent as of January 2021, WWF notes that 43 per cent of men are more likely to be online than Ugandan women.
But Judy Rugasira Kyanda, the managing director Knight Frank Uganda, says technology has not been demystified.
“The older and the rural woman still fears technology and to an extent the urban woman. We must simplify technology solutions. Whatever we develop must be simple and accessible,” she says.
Barbara Mutabazi, the Executive Director of Hive Colab, a business development organisation, says when women, who are naturally sharing beings, network they have the potential of achieving much more, including harnessing the use and benefits of technology.
She adds that technology plays a very big part in scaling up a business, noting that there are some many business opportunities afforded by technology which are not being exploited yet.
Carolyn Kakooza, the Executive Director of aXiom-Zorn, a big data analytics company, appeals to women-led businesses to utilize available technological tools like mobile phones and mobile money, as well as existing networks, even at village level, to breakthrough in business.
The new Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2021/2022 Women’s Entrepreneurship Report showed that startup rates for women dropped by 15% from 2019 to 2020, and held constant in 2021. Women also experienced sharper declines than men in their intentions to start a business within three years and overall startup rates in 2020, but not in upper-middle income countries.