"I Am a Digitally Empowered Woman"
Stories of Women Championing Digital Solutions to uplift their communities in Northern Uganda
United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), with the support of the Sweden Development Agency (SIDA), is implementing the 'Leaving no one behind in the digital era' strategy that promotes inclusive digital economies. As part of this strategy, UNCDF aims to not only narrow the digital divide for women and girls, but also use technology to improve women’s economic opportunities and drive the transformation of women into the builders of emerging digital economies.
While women’s access to and usage of digital solutions particularly in rural communities is still significantly low, the journey to leave no one behind begins with one person – an individual woman, because like the adage goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Here we showcase some of the women that are driving the use of digital solutions in Northern Uganda to improve their livelihoods and their communities.
Opening new markets for chili farmers using digital traceability
Hellen Acham is the Founder and Executive Director of the North-Eastern Chilli Producers Association (NECPA). NECPA, a female-led agribusiness currently supports 14,000 registered farmers (70% of whom are women) with agricultural extension services, inputs as well as markets for their produce. The organization focuses on the African bird eye chilli. By 2017, NECPA was selling 44% of all exported chillies in Uganda.
NECPA uses a digital traceability tool called ‘My-Koop’; a software system being piloted by Hamwe East Africa in Northern Uganda with support from UNCDF. My Koop records, collects, and queries all aspects of information from production, processing, packaging, storing, distribution and selling to the food chain based on modern database management technology, network technology and barcode technology.
Hellen learned about the huge potential of the African bird eye chilli while working with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries, and Fisheries. She started her venture in chilli farming by collecting chilli from the bushes. She later saw an opportunity to mobilize and bring together smallholder farmers interested in chilli farming particularly due to the crop’s resilience to climate change and international demand. Together with seven other women, including her mother who is her role model, they mobilized women’s groups as out growers and founded NECPA which has since grown to become one of the largest exporters of the African Bird eye chilli in Uganda.
Beyond the African bird eye chilli, Hellen also promotes planting of cashew nuts. She advocates for use of climate smart agricultural practices for sustainable agriculture.
Watch Hellen’s video here and here.
Digital Solutions for Smallholder farmers
Suzan Auma, a farmer in Bar Rwot Lira, uses a platform developed by Akello Banker to order farming inputs. The USSD-enabled platform enables farmers to order farming inputs from the comfort of their homes. It also provides access to timely and reliable farming information. Suzan spoke about how the platform has helped her to reduce movements allowing her to focus more on farming and taking care of her family.
Lydia, an agro-input dealer uses the same Akello Banker platform to sell agriculture inputs. This has opened her business to new markets. She is now able to serve many more customers some from as far as Bar Rwot, which is about 30Kms from Lira town.
In Yumbe, Zabibu Ayikoru, a digital agent and a farmer is promoting the use of the UgFarmer solution in her community. UgFarmer, a solution developed by Nilecom, Mezzanine, and Cordaid in partnership with UNCDF enables rural farmers to access agronomy information, inputs and markets using basic or smart mobile phones.
As a farmer, Zabibu believes that adopting better farming methods will enable her to meet her household needs and educate her children for a better future. As a digital agent, she does not only register farmers and agro dealers onto the UgFarmer platform, but also teaches them how to use the solution.
Apati Omari is an agro-input dealer that was onboarded onto the Akello Banker platform by Zabibu. He advocates for promoting farming as a business, particularly encouraging more women to get involved in commercial farming.
Hanifa Juma is a secretary of a Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA) in Yumbe district. VSLAs, savings groups that are self-managed by the members, provide a safe environment for members to save money through purchase of shares, and access small loans. Working with Ensibuuko Tech Limited, UNCDF is supporting access to financial inclusion of VSLAs through enabling linkage between Mobile Network Operators’ wallets and traditional financial systems. Digitalizing the VSLA data is the first step in this system. It is champions like Hanifa, who against all odds like limited access to affordable internet and electricity to charge phones that are making this work possible.
Digital stock management solution for health supplies
Judith Amia is a store manager at Panyandoli Health Centre III in Kiryandongo refugee settlement. Panyadoli Health Centre provides healthcare services to over 100,000 refugees within the settlement.
Judith is one of the store managers that quickly embraced the S+ digital health management solution developed in partnership with MAUL & Signalytic to address the challenges in determining and maintaining adequate stock levels in lower-level health facilities such as frequent occurrences of over-or under-stocking and stock-outs.
As a mother that lives away from her family, Judith appreciates that fact that the solution has made her work easier. S+ digital health management solution has enabled her to spend more time with her family and helped to save a woman’s life.
Community Health Information Systems for Health Services Access in Rural Communities
Velina and Harriet are volunteer community health workers (VHTs) providing primary health care services in their communities. They work as volunteers, bridging the gap of shortage of health workers in their communities. To ease the process of reporting and referral of patients visited by VHTs in the community, UNCDF with BRAC and Medic, have developed a community health information system popularly known as the VHT App. Despite the challenges of high costs of internet and limited access to power for charging, Velina and Harriet are some of the VHTs that have embraced this solution helping to improve the quality of data and diagnosis at the community level.
Beatrice, a Health Inspector working with Koboko Hospital says the VHT app has improved supervision of VHT work, and information sharing between the VHTs, the hospital and the Ministry of Health.
Digital school fees payment solution
In Lira, Sarah Abonyi, a bursar at Hill City College is using a digital school payment system developed by Service Cops. With the support of UNCDF, Service Cops is extending this service to unfamiliar territory and reaching schools in rural Uganda to address the challenges associated with traditional systems of school fees payment such as cash-based payments in the schools & banks along with paper-based practices of managing day-to-day operations of schools.
The solution also reduces the costs and time that parents spend when paying school fees.
