KAMPALA, Uganda — Centenary Bank has targeted women-led enterprises with 36.1 billion Ugandan shillings in financing as part of an aggressive strategy to move female entrepreneurs from basic survival to high-level wealth creation.
The funding, disbursed through 1,858 loans under the GROW financing facility, was highlighted May 6, 2026, during the launch of the She Counts initiative. The new program, developed alongside the United Nations Development Programme, seeks to equip women with the technical knowledge to navigate formal financial systems and manage complex investments.
Centenary Bank Managing Director Fabian Kasi said the institution is prioritizing a shift in how women participate in the economy.
For too long, the financial dialogue surrounding women has been relegated to the sidelines of micro-survival and basic savings, Kasi said. We therefore join in the effort to pivot the conversation toward a more ambitious horizon with the She Counts initiative that seeks to empower women to grow their finances.
The initiative arrives as Uganda targets middle-income status by 2027. While women-owned businesses account for roughly 40 percent of all micro- and small-enterprises in the country, many still face barriers to technical financial products.
The She Counts program will provide structured learning and expert-led clinics focused on treasury bonds, unit trusts, insurance and capital markets. The goal is to close the financial literacy gap between men and women, which currently stands at 8 percentage points according to Bank of Uganda data.
Nwanne Vwede-Obahor, the UNDP resident representative in Uganda, said the platform is designed to bridge the gap for women who have historically been excluded from formal systems.
We want to demystify investments by speaking in plain, useful and actionable language because many women are excluded from formal financial systems not for lack of ability but because those systems were never made accessible to them, Vwede-Obahor said.
Centenary Bank, which operates 81 branches and more than 9,000 agents nationwide, has already trained 52,000 women in financial literacy. Kasi pledged that the bank will continue to design products that recognize the unique professional paths of women to ensure they transition from earning to investing.
