What American Women Founders Got That Ugandan Women Founders Still Wait For

Counting is one of the rails this essay follows, and AVODA has left it unlaid in its own house: every figure we hold, the 600+ founders trained included, lumps women and men into one total, with no gender split. In 1988, women-owned firms in the United States won about 1% of federal contracts. In Uganda today, women-owned and women-led businesses win about 1% of government contracts, though they make up close to 40% of the country’s businesses. What moved the American figure was a set of legal rails laid one at a time, and Uganda has begun laying its own, in a different order, with one rail still missing.

Key Takeaways

• Women-owned US firms won about 1% of federal contracts in 1988 and 4.91% in FY2023, according to the Congressional Research Service. Ugandan women-owned and led firms win about 1% now.
• American women founders got four rails over four decades: credit in their own names (1974 and 1988), a federal buyer obliged to pay within 30 days (1982), a procurement goal with set-asides (1994 to 2011), and an official count of women-owned firms.
• Uganda has laid two of those rails since 2019: a registry for borrowing against movable assets, and a 2021 law, enforced from 2024, reserving at least 15% of each public buyer’s procurement budget for firms owned by women, youth and persons with disabilities.
• The rail Uganda lacks is payment. The Auditor General put domestic arrears at about Shs8.4 trillion in December 2025, so a reserved contract can turn into an unsecured loan to the state.

Two countries, one percent, thirty-six years apart

A 2024 report by the Congressional Research Service traces the American record. When a 1979 executive order first set goals, women-owned small businesses received about 0.2% of federal contracts. By 1988 the share had reached 1%. Congress then set a goal of 5% in the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994, which took effect in 1996. The government met it for the first time in FY2015, twenty-one years after the law, and again in FY2019. In FY2023 the share stood at 4.91%.

The Ugandan figure comes from research funded by Canada’s IDRC and reported by the Open Contracting Partnership in January 2025. Read together, the two series put Kampala in 2024 roughly where Washington stood in 1988.

What the book lists, and the rails it leaves out

Women in the Technology and Innovation Ecosystem: From Movers to Makers in America (CRC Press, 2026), edited by Manleenjot Kaur, Melissa Hyunh and Tilottama Singh, gives its seventh chapter to American women innovators. The chapter’s Table 7.1 lists four laws it calls “the institutionalization of women’s inclusion”: the 19th Amendment (1920), the Equal Pay Act (1963), Title IX (1972) and the CHIPS and Science Act (2022). Each is a right to vote, to equal pay, to education or to research money.

The table leaves out the laws a founder actually trades on. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act, signed in October 1974, barred lenders from discriminating by sex or marital status. A Philadelphia Fed history records why it was needed: lenders often required single, divorced or widowed women to bring a male relative as co-signer. The Women’s Business Ownership Act of 1988 attacked the lending bias again, created the National Women’s Business Council, and required the Census Bureau to count women-owned corporations properly. The Prompt Payment Act of 1982 obliged federal agencies to pay on time or pay interest. None of these appears in the table.

The chapter’s own figures need a check. It says women were 47% of new American entrepreneurs in 2022 and about 41% in 2023. Kauffman’s published series puts the share between 36% and 44% from 1996 to 2021, about four in ten throughout, close to the Ugandan share. The rails changed little about how many American women started firms. They changed what a started firm could reach.

In the book’s fifth chapter Sandra Morno, a tax strategist for US expats and the eldest daughter of a first-generation Haitian American family, recalls that nobody at home sat her down and said, “Here’s how credit works.” A rail teaches that lesson to founders whose parents could not.

The Four-Rail Test

The Four-Rail Test names four pieces of public plumbing that connect a woman’s firm to money and buyers, and asks whether each reaches her.

Collateral. Uganda has no law asking for a husband’s signature, and the Security Interest in Movable Property Act of 2019 opened a registry, run by the Uganda Registration Services Bureau, where lenders can record a charge over inventory, equipment, farm produce or receivables. Where a lender still asks for a land title, the numbers turn against her: UN Women, citing a 2024 report from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, puts women at 24% of adult landowners against 37% of men. The co-signer has left the statute book and returned through the title deed.

Contract. Here Uganda has moved fast. A 2021 amendment to the procurement law created reservation schemes. A Ministry of Local Government briefing sets out the terms: every public buyer reserves at least 15% of its procurement budget, plus every purchase of UGX 30 million and below for central government bodies and UGX 10 million for local governments, for firms owned by women, youth and persons with disabilities. A women-owned enterprise must be registered and at least 51% owned, controlled and operated by Ugandan women. In January 2024 PPDA’s executive director, Benson Turamye, told the Daily Monitor that procurement plans without the reservation would be rejected.

Payment. Under the federal acquisition rules, a payment falls due on the 30th day after a proper invoice, and interest is paid automatically, without the supplier asking. In Uganda, the December 2025 Auditor General’s report put government arrears to suppliers and contractors at about Shs8.4 trillion.

Count. The 1988 Act made the Census count women-owned corporations, and the SBA’s annual scorecard now reports the federal share every year. Uganda’s count is just starting. PPDA and the civic group AFIC changed the data templates so that, in Turamye’s words, officials now ask: “Is it a woman-owned enterprise or a male-owned?” Four pilot entities, including Kampala Capital City Authority and Wakiso District, now hold baselines and a target of 5% more awards to women-owned firms.

Contract before payment: the order Uganda chose

Stated plainly, the American result does not transfer to Uganda on three counts. US set-asides arrived after a rule that pays in 30 days with interest; Ugandan reserved tenders arrive into Shs8.4 trillion of arrears. US credit law fixed a woman’s standing as a borrower; in Uganda the gap is the collateral itself, with women at 24% of adult landowners. And the order of the rails is reversed. The Count rail and the slow arithmetic of a goal carry over.

The United States laid credit (1974) and payment discipline (1982) before the 5% goal (1994).

Uganda laid the contract rail first. A founder who wins a reserved tender buys stock, pays casual staff and carries the receivable herself, owed by a government whose arrears run to trillions of shillings. A receivable is a stock that only the payer can drain. When the payer is slow, every contract she wins converts more of her cash into a claim on the Treasury. A small firm can win its way into insolvency.

Kenya shows how long this road runs. Its Access to Government Procurement Opportunities program carries a legal requirement that public bodies reserve at least 30% of their procurement budgets for women, youth and persons with disabilities. Ten years after the program launched, Ruth Kiraka, associate professor of management at Strathmore University Business School, told IDRC the real share was “between 1 and 2%.” The same research found banks wary of lending against government contracts because of pending bills, and only about 25,000 of 515,200 licensed, women-owned enterprises active in the program.

Twenty-one years passed between the American goal and the first year it was met. Uganda’s reservation will produce results slowly, and only for firms that survive the wait for payment.

Fronts on the register: what the GAO found

A 2019 Government Accountability Office review, summarized by the Congressional Research Service, found about 40% of a sample of firms in the American women-owned set-aside program ineligible in FY2017. IDRC reports men registering businesses in the names of their wives, and Ruth Mwihaki Gitu, who runs an AGPO-registered printing business in a Nairobi suburb, told its writers: “Sometimes the women aren’t even aware their names are being used.” A reservation scheme pays for a label, so it draws people who can supply the label without the business behind it.

I concede the point in full. Some reserved contracts in Uganda will go to firms where a woman’s name sits on the register and a man runs the money, and some procurement officers will treat the 15% as paperwork.

It argues for the fourth rail. The United States answered the fraud by ending self-certification in 2020 and checking ownership directly, and Uganda’s guidelines already require a declaration of beneficial ownership and verification of each registration. Every front that is caught leaves a reserved contract for a firm that is genuinely hers, and a woman whose shares, bank mandate and signature sit in her own name loses nothing to a strict check.

Running the test on your own firm

1. Collateral. List the movable assets your firm owns: stock, equipment, a delivery motorcycle, invoices owed by reliable clients. Ask your SACCO or bank, in writing, whether it will lend against them through the URSB registry.
2. Contract. Pull your company’s registration and check the 51% test as a verifier would: shares held in your name, you as a director and signatory, the bank mandate in your name. Fix the one document that fails. Then register on the PPDA Register of Providers at egpuganda.go.ug and read the procurement plans of two nearby public buyers for reserved items.
3. Payment. Set the largest receivable you can carry for six months without missing payroll. Bid only on reserved tenders below that figure, and favor buyers with a record of paying on time.
4. Count. When you bid, declare your firm as women-owned on every form that asks. Each one adds a row to the baseline that holds buyers to account.

AVODA has run 18 programs in three countries, and that training builds the firm; the rails decide how far a well-run firm can travel.

What is owed, and when

Leviticus 19:13 sends the hired worker home with his wages before morning, a prompt-payment rule written long before Congress wrote one. It lands on the rail every section above kept returning to: a contract is worth only what is paid on the date it falls due. The fiscal frame treats arrears as a stock to be cleared over a medium-term plan, and on its own terms that is correct. What it misses is the supplier on the 31st day, carrying the state’s debt on her own payroll. Proverbs 3:27 names her claim: “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.” There the due date belongs to a person, and delay is a wrong done to her, which gives an unpaid invoice the moral weight a budget line lacks. The same verse binds the founder. The one payment rail she controls runs from her own till to the casual worker and the stock supplier, and she can keep it on time from the next pay day.

Frequently Asked Questions

What share of government contracts do women-owned businesses win in Uganda?

About 1%, according to IDRC-funded research reported by the Open Contracting Partnership in 2025, though women-owned and led firms make up close to 40% of Ugandan businesses. Procurement absorbs about 60% of government expenditure, so women’s firms hold a thin slice of the largest buyer in the country.

What is Uganda’s procurement reservation scheme for women-owned businesses?

A 2021 amendment to Uganda’s procurement law, enforced by PPDA from 2024, requires each public buyer to reserve at least 15% of its procurement budget, and every purchase up to UGX 30 million (UGX 10 million for local governments), for firms owned by women, youth and persons with disabilities. Bid security and bidding fees are waived.

How does a business qualify as women-owned for reserved tenders in Uganda?

It must be registered and at least 51% owned, controlled and operated by one or more Ugandan women aged 18 and over. Providers register on the PPDA Register of Providers at egpuganda.go.ug and declare beneficial ownership. Public buyers verify registrations, so shares, directorship and bank mandate should all sit in the owner’s name.

Can a Ugandan business borrow against stock or invoices instead of land?

Yes. The Security Interest in Movable Property Act of 2019 created a registry at the Uganda Registration Services Bureau where lenders record charges over inventory, equipment, farm produce, vehicles and receivables. SACCOs and money lenders supervised by the microfinance regulator may use it. Each lender still decides what it accepts.

Why did the American women-owned contracting goal take so long to reach?

Congress set the 5% goal in 1994 and it took effect in 1996, yet the government first met it in FY2015 and again in FY2019. Set-asides only came into force in 2011, and a 2019 review found many participating firms ineligible, which led to direct certification from 2020.

Next Step

A reserved tender rewards the firm that can afford to wait for its money. The AVODA Business Capability Assessment shows whether your cash management and records can carry a slow-paying public buyer. Complete it before your first bid, so the first contract you win builds the firm rather than draining it.

Related Reading

• Buy Uganda, Build Uganda: Procurement as Industrial Policy, and How an SME Actually Wins It
• Gender-Lens Investing: Capital First or Capability First?
• The 1% Problem: Why Female-Founder Programs Keep Failing
• Why Uganda Has No Startup Act, and What One Should Say

Sources and Evidence

1. Kaur, Hyunh and Singh (eds.), Women in the Technology and Innovation Ecosystem: From Movers to Makers in America, CRC Press, 2026, DOI 10.1201/9781003604402: chapter 7, Table 7.1 and its entrepreneurship figures; chapter 5 (Morno) quoted.
2. Congressional Research Service, R46322, “The Women-Owned Small Business Contract Program: Legislative and Program History” (June 2024): 0.2% (1979), 1% (1988), the 1994 goal, set-asides from 2011, goal met in FY2015 and FY2019, 4.91% in FY2023, the 2019 GAO ineligibility finding, end of self-certification.
3. SBA, FY2015 Small Business Procurement Scorecard release: first year the 5% women-owned goal was met.
4. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, “The Equal Credit Opportunity Act” discussion paper: 1974 passage, male co-signer practice.
5. U.S. Department of Justice, Equal Credit Opportunity Act: scope of the prohibition on sex and marital-status discrimination.
6. NAWBO, “What is H.R. 5050: The Women’s Business Ownership Act”: lending bias, Census counts of women-owned corporations, National Women’s Business Council.
7. Bureau of the Fiscal Service, Prompt Payment: the 1982 Act and interest on late federal payments.
8. FAR 52.232-25, Prompt Payment clause: due on the 30th day after a proper invoice; automatic interest penalty.
9. Kauffman Foundation, “Who Is the Entrepreneur? 1996 to 2021”: women’s share of new entrepreneurs, 36% to 44%, 39.9% in 2021.
10. Open Contracting Partnership, “Empowering women businesses in Uganda through contracts” (January 2025): 1% of contracts, 60% of expenditure, gender data and pilot entities, Turamye quote.
11. Ministry of Local Government, “Preference and Reservation Schemes” presentation: 2021 amendment, 15% reservation, UGX 30 million and 10 million thresholds, 51% definition, bid securing declaration, registration and verification.
12. Daily Monitor, “15% procurement budget reserved for special groups” (January 2024): PPDA will reject plans without the reservation.
13. URSB, SIMPO Information Guide: movable assets usable as collateral.
14. Uganda Microfinance Regulatory Authority, remarks on SIMPO (February 2021): registry open to SACCOs and money lenders.
15. UN Women Uganda, program results page citing UBOS 2024: women 24% of adult landowners, men 37%.
16. Eagle Online, “MPs warn it could take 48 years to clear Uganda’s Shs8.4t domestic arrears” (March 2026): Auditor General’s December 2025 arrears figure.
17. IDRC, “Kenyan women bid for success in public procurement”: AGPO’s 30% target, 1 to 2% reality, fronting, pending bills, 25,000 of 515,200 firms.
18. Proverbs 3:27 to 28, ESV, Bible Gateway and Leviticus 19:13: the faith paragraph.