From 17 to 19 February, the Uganda Green Enterprise Finance Accelerator (UGEFA) brought together a cohort of Business Advisors and ecosystem experts at the Forest Cottages in Kampala for an intensive three-day Training of Trainers (ToT) covering two interconnected modules: Gender and Diversity in Business and Women in Business, a combination that sits at the very heart of where UGEFA is heading next in one of its focus tracks.
Part of a Bigger Vision for Women in Green Business
The training comes at a significant moment for UGEFA. The programme recently launched UGEFA4Her, a dedicated offer for women-led and women-owned green enterprises in Uganda, designed to provide the targeted acceleration and financing support that women entrepreneurs need to scale. As Christine Meyer, UGEFA Programme Lead, noted at the launch: “Women-led enterprises need more than awards, small prize money or showcasing – they need systematic approaches to remove barriers and inequalities and to leverage the full potential of their businesses.”
The February ToT was one step towards that kind of systematic investment, ensuring that the business advisors who walk alongside Uganda’s green enterprises every day are fully equipped to make UGEFA4Her’s ambitions a reality on the ground. The first module –Gender and Diversity in Business– equipped advisors with the conceptual grounding, diagnostic frameworks and practical tools to assess and address gender gaps within the enterprises they support: from workplace inclusivity to marketing and business model design. The second module –Women in Business– went further, focusing specifically on the realities women entrepreneurs face: understanding women as customers and leaders, strengthening their financial confidence and access and protecting their legal rights as business owners.
Three Days of Practical, Participatory Learning
Drawing on adelphi’s toolification methodology –an approach emphasising co-creation and output orientation rather than knowledge transfer through lecturing– the ToT centred on case study work and participatory sessions that encouraged peer exchange. Some of the most valuable insights emerged precisely in the moments where advisors drew on their own on-the-ground experience of Uganda’s business ecosystem: the persistent gender gaps they observe within enterprises, the structural barriers women entrepreneurs navigate daily, and the gaps in how the financial sector currently serves them.
What Advisors Took Away
The depth of participants’ engagement was evident in the reflections they shared. Gender analysis –learning to systematically identify where gaps exist and why– emerged as a particularly powerful learning for the group as did approaches for supporting women entrepreneurs to engage with financial institutions with confidence and clarity. Their voices speak for themselves:
“I am excited to integrate the stakeholder analysis, gender gap analysis, female customer analysis, gender inclusion map, and marketing analysis templates – since they relate directly to my work.”
“All the learning will henceforth be part of my daily work. I now have the tools to identify gender gaps, address them in green enterprises, and support women entrepreneurs more effectively.”
Participants also engaged with the challenges they observe daily. Access to finance emerged as the most acute barrier facing women-led SMEs in Uganda – and, as one participant put it, at its root lies a deeper problem:
“Financial institutions have not yet reached a level of trust that women can own assets and operate businesses successfully.”
This trust deficit is compounded by further structural factors: limited collateral, social norms that restrict women’s ownership of assets, and the disproportionate burden of unpaid care work. As another participant reflected:
“The local financial sector has not yet fully appreciated the different contexts and limitations in which women operate when it comes to business.”
These conversations are directly feeding into UGEFA’s thinking on how to further strengthen support for women-led enterprises – including through UGEFA4Her, which brings targeted financial and advisory support to exactly the women these business advisors are now better equipped to reach.
Building a Network that Multiplies Impact
When advisors are equipped with the right knowledge, mindset, and tools, they multiply impact across every enterprise they work with. This ToT is part of a series of capacity-building workshops aimed at ensuring that gender-sensitive, green-focused enterprise support across Uganda reaches further and goes deeper. With UGEFA4Her now launched and a growing network of trained advisors, UGEFA is taking part in shaping the ecosystem that Uganda’s women-led green enterprises deserve.
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