The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has joined MTN Uganda in the Advance Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) project aimed at empowering and supporting women in starting, growing, and sustaining their businesses.
The initiative is in line with the NSSF’s effort to support early small and growing businesses (SGBs) with patient capital, technical assistance and linkages, and affordable financing to make them competitive and investment-ready through Hi-Innovator.
Alex Rumanyika Kalimugogo, the head of strategy at NSSF, said while speaking at the launch of the initiative in Kampala on October 2, 2023, that technology is the only thing that is closest to magic; it will give a different customer experience.
He noted that technology can change jobs from 1 to 7, especially in Uganda, where most jobs are in agriculture. He emphasised that if more jobs are to be created, there is a need to focus on involving women in agriculture because they are the ones who create jobs.
“We recently had a women-focused cohort, which we call the Hi-Innovator women‘s cohort, and the statistics flipped immediately after we ran it. Our target is 132, 000 jobs, of which we want 70,000 to be women’s jobs,” Kalimugogo said.
The Hi-Innovators initiative supports small and growing businesses by unlocking the potential of Ugandan entrepreneurs through collaboration and providing quality technical assistance through working with financial institutions.