The Access to Finance program is an ongoing intervention that addresses the significant barriers to productivity currently faced by market women in Uganda, primarily due to limited access to capital and the instability that accompanies it. Recognizing that many organized groups still lack critical skills in leadership, financial management, and conflict resolution, the Institute for Social Transformation (IST), with support from various partners, continues to bridge these gaps by actively promoting the formation and strengthening of women-led cooperatives.

The central mechanism currently being employed is the Revolving Fund Model, which IST utilizes to provide market women entrepreneurs with necessary capital, thereby ensuring their sustainable business growth and fostering the continuous development of vital management and leadership skills within the cooperative framework.

The market women entrepreneurs in Kampala are embracing technology and transitioning their businesses online, moving beyond relying solely on walk-in clients. This digital shift was significantly aided by the Institute for Social Transformation which empowered over 10,000 market women across the country with crucial business and financial literacy skills to foster social and economic self-reliance.

Despite this capacity building, the entrepreneurs still faced substantial challenges, including competition from mobile vendors and the emergence of middlemen who brokered personal and SME shopping for profit. In response, IST, supported by UN Women and the Embassy of Sweden, developed and launched the Market Garden App in December 2018. This online sales platform creates convenience, allowing people to shop for groceries anytime and anywhere via their smartphones. Following test runs in 2019, the app opened to the public in March 2020, marking a turning point from which market women have never looked back, solidifying their presence in the digital marketplace where the app is now available on both the Google Play Store and the App Store.

The Cooperative Formation and Management program is transforming the working conditions of women entrepreneurs in the informal sector by shifting them from individual efforts to collective action. This initiative focuses on establishing recognizable cooperatives formed across 18 markets in districts like Busia, Bugiri, Iganga, Kampala, Gulu and Arua the dual goal of securing their social and economic well-being and enhancing their invisibility to policymakers. Through focused training in cooperative formation, management, conflict resolution, group dynamics, and best business practices, the program empowers these women.

Furthermore, it substantially invests in building strong coalitions and networks to strengthen their collective position, providing a platform to advocate for necessary legislative reforms and policy accessibility to national benefits. Beyond business growth, which is supported by a capacitated revolving fund with affordable interest rates, the cooperatives equip members with diversified skills (including craft and soap making, briquette production, and urban farming) and serve as a crucial social and emotional network, even facilitating the handling of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and sexual harassment cases within some markets.

We run a needs-based adult literacy class for market communities in Kampala and Wakiso districts in Uganda. The Adult literacy classes are conducted focusing on addressing the needs, problems, and the dreams of market women and therefore help them to learn reading, writing, counting, how to care about their health, knowing about their human rights and the laws governing them as citizens of Uganda.

The classes are conducted in both English and Luganda depending on the levels of literacy. The Adult literacy lessons conducted have not only built the ability to read, write and count but also strengthened the confidence for market women and men to speak through different platforms.
Because of these classes, IST has so far held 3 graduation ceremonies graduated a total number of 150 market women and 4 men from level 1 and level 2 of adult literacy from the three markets of Nakawa, Kalerwe Freedom and Bivamuntuuyo under the Theme “Adult literacy for improved business management

Uganda’s market vendors, particularly women and youth, are celebrating a landmark victory following the successful repeal of the outdated colonial Markets Act of 1942 after 80 years, which failed to address modern market dynamics, leading to unclear governance and gender-insensitive policies. This transformative change was realized with the ushering in of the Markets Act 2023, a landmark achievement for economic empowerment and gender equality spearheaded by the Institute for Social Transformation and partners like like Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES),Urgent Action Fund (UAF), OXFAM- Uganda, UN Women and National level CSOS in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government.

Through tireless advocacy and stakeholder collaboration, IST redefined the landscape for these vital groups, whose work in the informal economy employs approximately 89% of the labour force (UBOS, 2020), marking a significant turning point in the country’s socio-economic development by finally addressing the long-standing barriers that affected their growth and empowerment.

Uganda is facing escalating environmental shocks, including prolonged droughts, floods, and landslides, with regions like arid Karamoja (e.g., Napak District) and the landslide-prone Elgon region (e.g., Mbale District) being particularly vulnerable, threatening lives, livelihoods, and undermining peace and social cohesion in fragile communities. These climate-induced disasters disproportionately affect women and girls due to entrenched gender roles and limited control over resources, and they also exacerbate existing conflict drivers like land scarcity and resource competition, risking deeper inequalities and igniting tensions.

The project, “Nurturing a Culture of Peace and Tolerance in Uganda,” in partnership with the Women’s International Peace Centre (WIPC) and the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) supported by UN Women embraces a gender-transformative approach to respond to these intersecting challenges, acknowledging that empowering women as leaders in climate action is a pathway to both resilience and peace, ultimately equipping communities to better recover from disasters, reduce conflict, and build sustainable peace.
In partnership with the Korea Hope Foundation, the Institute for Social Transformation (IST) is currently implementing the project “Empowering Women and Youth in Urban Markets for Sustainable Livelihoods and Climate Resilience,” specifically targeting market women in Kalerwe and Kasubi.

This initiative employs an innovative, closed-loop approach where participants are trained in waste segregation and value addition, allowing them to turn market garbage into cash. By converting primarily organic market waste into highly valuable agricultural products like fertilisers and poultry feeds, the project not only generates new, diversified income streams thus boosting economic resilience against climate-induced shocks but also actively cleans the market environment, reduces disease, minimizes the risk of flash floods from blocked drainage, and promotes overall climate-smart practices by supplying essential inputs for food production.

The Institute for Social Transformation with support from its partners, maintains an ongoing commitment to equipping women entrepreneurs with the practical, market-relevant skills needed for sustainable economic self-reliance.

To date, IST has successfully skilled over 5,216 women entrepreneurs in diverse, income-generating activities to strategically ensure women can diversify their livelihoods and build resilience against economic shocks. This comprehensive vocational training focuses on three key areas: Liquid Soap Making, which offers a low-capital entry point into entrepreneurship by producing high-demand household products; Shoe Making, which provides craftsmanship skills to tap into the local fashion and accessories market; and Value Addition/Food Processing, which teaches techniques to process perishable goods into shelf-stable, high-profit products (like dried foods, and flours).
By providing these skills, IST systematically builds a larger, more capable base of women-led businesses across Uganda, significantly increasing their profit margins and reducing post-harvest losses.