Equity Bank Extends Women’s Enterprise Financing Programme to Buvuma Island

November 14, 2026 in Business, Companies by Editor

Nelson Mugisha, Enterprise Development Manager at Equity Bank Uganda addressing women entreprenuers in Buvuma district set to benefit from the (GROW) Project extension

Equity Bank has extended the government-backed GROW Project to Buvuma, opening access to affordable financing, financial literacy training and business development support for women entrepreneurs in the island district.

 

Women entrepreneurs in Buvuma District are being brought into a government-backed enterprise financing programme that combines affordable credit with business development support, as efforts to widen women’s access to formal finance extend to some of Uganda’s harder-to-reach communities.

Equity Bank Uganda is among the participating financial institutions implementing the Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) Project, a government initiative supported by the World Bank and the Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU).

The programme is designed to address constraints that limit women’s ability to establish, formalise and expand businesses, particularly access to affordable credit, business skills and financial services.

According to Nelson Mugisha, Equity Bank Uganda’s Enterprise Development Manager, Buvuma’s inclusion follows a review of the programme’s geographical coverage by PSFU and participating financial institutions. The review found that 134 of Uganda’s 136 districts had been reached, leaving Buvuma and Otuke outside the programme.

The extension is intended to close that coverage gap and bring women entrepreneurs in the two districts into the financing and enterprise development framework.

Under GROW, eligible women can access loans ranging from UGX1 million to UGX100 million, depending on their business requirements and the applicable loan category.

However, Mugisha said the programme’s support extends beyond lending to include financial literacy, business registration and formalisation, and digitalisation.

The training covers practical aspects of enterprise management, including budgeting, record keeping, debt management and business growth. Formalisation, in turn, is intended to help enterprises improve their operations and position themselves to access wider markets and financing opportunities.

One of the barriers the programme seeks to address is the difficulty many women face in meeting conventional collateral requirements. Under the GROW framework, married women may use their spouses’ collateral security to support loan applications, subject to the applicable requirements.

Silverstar Kagga, a financial literacy trainer at Equity Bank Uganda for the Eastern Region, said the decision to extend the programme to Buvuma was informed by the need to ensure that women in the island district were not excluded from an initiative already operating across most of the country.

Interest among women participating in the National Oil Palm Project, which has established a commercial agricultural value chain in the district, has also reinforced the case for extending the GROW programme to Buvuma.

Equity Bank is also encouraging beneficiaries to build savings and adopt digital banking services, which could reduce the time and cost associated with travelling to access financial services in a geographically dispersed island district.

Kagga cautioned prospective borrowers to assess their business requirements and repayment capacity before taking on debt. Women who do not qualify for GROW financing can explore other banking products available to support their enterprises.