NAM member states urged to provide tax exemptions to women SMEs

Member States of the Non-Aligned Movement have been asked to provide tax exemptions to Small and Medium related businesses dominated by women in the respective countries.

while addressing women entrepreneurs who participated in the agri-business expo and investment summit, a side event organized by the UN-women for the ongoing Non–Aligned Movement and G77+China summit ,the Minister of Gender Labour and Social Development Betty Amongi, said that  women are currently active in business creation however their businesses don’t last due to the high taxes.

Amongi  further re-echoed the government's commitment to support women in business through availing several initiatives that can enable easy access to finances and also empower women with skills so that they can strengthen their businesses.

At the same event the Minister of State for Fisheries Hellen Adoa advised women in Agri-business to embrace the use of Information and Communications Technology ( ICT)to boost their businesses.

Adoa explained that the use of ICT can enable easy advertising of their produce which in the long run attracts customers from all parts of the country.

Dorothy Awori the Team Leader for Jars of Clay a nongovernmental organization that supports women who  also participated in the exhibition stressed that failure to access finances has highly affected the growth of women dominated business .

She explained that though the government has put in place several funds to support them they can’t access them.

  “Government has put in place some funds and policies to support women but most of them lack the collateral and security to access some of these funding, this money is channelled through banks and sometimes banks ask for things that women don’t have access to like land title since our society is patriarchal”, Awori stated.

Prof. Gudula Naiga, a Ugandan social entrepreneur said that the delay in certifying products for start-up-related businesses is also a big challenge adding that the delay in having the products get certified by the Uganda National Bureau of the standards limits businesses to grow.

“The quality of products that operators of small and medium enterprises are producing, where majority of which are owned by women are quality products, but they are not certified therefore access to the international market remains limited”, Naiga said