WOVNET Core Values
Empowerment: We believe every woman is unique and powerful in her own right. Women
vendors are our greatest strength and we will support them to achieve our aims by providing
them with the information, rewards and power they need to take the initiative and make decisions
to solve problems and improve our delivery and performance. As a learning organization – we
encourage our members to take risks and avoid making mistakes, we learn and grow and get
better, stronger and smarter.
WOVNET focus Areas
Capacity Building
The informal economy is uniquely challenging to vendors and entrepreneurs regardless of
gender, but women tend to experience these challenges differently and at times, more intensely,
than men. As a result, commonly suggested solutions, which operate under the assumption that
each informal vendor has the same capacity and individual agency, often fail to sufficiently help
those struggling the most. WOVNET explores the gendered nature of informality and work to
build capacity, leverage collective action, and spread knowledge for women informal vendors.
Capacity building, collective action, and knowledge sharing will help improve the business
environment for women, and lead toward more vibrant vendor communities, a healthy private
sector, and a more involved civil society.
Women often lack social, political, and in some cases associational, protections and rights.
Informality, or labor and enterprise that lacks social protection and goes unlicensed, unregulated,
and untaxed, accounts for roughly 74 percent of women’s employment in Uganda. In Uganda,
more women than men tend to work informally
Although informality provides goods, services, work and enterprise to millions around the
Country, it is associated with low productivity, low growth, tax evasion, and unfair competition.
When taking gender into account, women must balance these challenges with the
disproportionate burden of unpaid care work; the barriers of obtaining equal rights to property,
credit, land and natural resources, and workplace protections; as well as access to basic services
which include healthcare, childcare, transportation, and public space. Moreover, women often
lack social, political, and in some cases associational, protections and rights. When women lack
these protections and rights, the risk of advocating for solutions to these problems sharply
increases.
Advocacy Campaigns
Women vendors form considerable part of Informal sector economy in Uganda. There are close to 3
million street vendors in Uganda. Roughly 10% of entire urban population are women vendors. Vendors
in Uganda contribute greatly to the country’s savings and GDP. Despite this vending is part of the
unregulated informal economy and is therefore criminalized by city officials, police officers, wholesalers,
resident welfare associations, and many residents themselves. We organize and bring all women
vendors together and strengthening their union to increase their bargaining powers with the
Government/municipal authorities. WOVNET helps vendors develop leaders and empowers them so
that they can advocate for the rights of their community. WOVNET brings legal recognition, rights, and
respect to women vendors across towns and cities in Uganda. WOVNET interacts with autorities,
liaises with the police to ensure women vendors are not harassed, advocates through the court and
appellate authorities and the media both print and electronic, to highlight the issues of the vendors and
gain visibility for them.
Networking
WOVNET organizes events to create opportunities for women
vendors to network. We organize Women Vendors Exhibition and
Forum to accomplish two goals: network and make business deals.
During these events women vendors meet new business partners and
clinch business deals. The events that normally last for three-days
normally starts with a roundtable during which business and
government leaders discusses ways to empower more women
vendors to participate in trade. During these events women vendors
meet successful women entrepreneurs and build contacts. Some uses
these events to sign business deals worth who ‘really matter’
