Alfred Okwonga the Gulu City Mayor (fourth from left) with executives of the selected companies supplying the MTN. Photos by Jimmy Komakech
By Jimmy Komakech
Gulu: A global push to elevate women from the sidelines of the value chain into spaces of innovation, leadership, and high-level enterprise has defined much of 2025.
This momentum was especially amplified during the Osaka 2025 Women in Tech Global Summit held in April, where world leaders and industry experts reinforced the Osaka Protocol, an international commitment to expanding gender equality and digital inclusion across the globe.
While the world continues to rally behind the inclusion of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and technology-driven economies, Uganda has already been taking deliberate strides toward this goal.
In 2023, MTN Uganda launched its Advancing Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) initiative, a programme designed to bridge global ambitions with local realities by empowering women-led businesses to access large-scale procurement opportunities, strengthen their technical capacity, and thrive within competitive sectors of the telecom industry.
On November 20, 2025, MTN Uganda, in partnership with MTN Mobile Money Uganda, American Tower Corporation (ATC) Uganda, dfcu Bank, and The Innovation Village, opened applications for the second cohort of the AWE programme.
This announcement came on the heels of an impressive first phase that transformed the landscape of women-led enterprises in Uganda.
During the first three years of implementation, the AWE initiative enabled more than 40 women-owned businesses to secure contracts worth UGX 18 billion surpassing the initial UGX 15 billion target.
In under two years, the number of women-led enterprises within MTN Uganda’s supplier ecosystem rose from a barely noticeable 0.3 percent to an encouraging 15 percent.
A total of 118 businesses from different regions of the country participated in the programme, benefiting from mentorship, procurement readiness support, and hands-on training that strengthened their operational and technical capacity.
Through dfcu Bank, the programme unlocked more than UGX 1.6 billion in subsidised loans, while the women entrepreneurs completed over 30 training modules covering financial management, technical capacity building, ESG compliance, and procurement processes.
The Felt Impact
For many participants, the programme’s impact has been deeply personal and transformative. Josephine Kanyi, the Executive Head of Pavicon Group Limited a company specialising in fiber optic deployment and digital infrastructure recalls how the AWE programme strengthened her leadership and the visibility of her firm.
She explains that they took on the challenge of running a women-led company to prove that women could excel even in highly technical sectors. Under her stewardship, Pavicon has laid more than 1.5 kilometres of fiber cable, connecting over 800 homes and supporting installations on 80 solar sites for MTN Uganda. The company has since gained both national and international recognition.
Another beneficiary, Stella Lungase, the CEO of Solar Nation, shares that the guidance and mentorship offered by MTN Uganda played an instrumental role in reshaping how her company operated.
She notes that the training inspired them to pursue additional internal capacity-building programmes, including architectural design. Lungase describes the AWE programme as demanding but profoundly transformative and encourages all eligible women to apply.
MTN Uganda CEO Sylvia Mulinge says the programme’s success demonstrates the value of intentional empowerment. According to her, AWE has shown that deliberate inclusion of women entrepreneurs results in measurable business and social progress.
She explains that bringing women into strategic projects such as solar installations at MTN sites not only accelerates the company’s sustainability targets but also drives inclusive economic development across Uganda.
Her sentiments are echoed by the programme’s partners. ATC Uganda Chief Executive Officer Dorothy Kabagambe Ssemanda who emphasises that technical mentorship is essential to empowering women within the telecom infrastructure sector, noting that AWE offers guidance in structural engineering, project management, and health and safety.
She believes such support is crucial for Uganda’s digital transformation. dfcu Bank’s Chief Retail Banking Officer, Annette Kiconco, highlights that empowering women entrepreneurs aligns with the bank’s Women in Business Programme, which promotes financial inclusion and access to affordable financing for women-led enterprises.
She explains that when women succeed, their communities and the wider economy benefit. Meanwhile, Arthur Mukembo, CEO of FutureLab at The Innovation Village, stresses that programmes like AWE strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems by giving women the tools, networks, and resources needed to unlock markets, build innovative solutions, and create jobs.
In Northern Uganda, Gulu City Mayor Alfred Okwonga is encouraging women to embrace the program, saying that women in the region should also benefit from economically productive opportunities in the technology and innovation sectors. He further called for mentorship for those who may not yet be ready to join the programme.
The second cohort of the AWE initiative will run until December 20, 2025, and is open to women entrepreneurs from Northern, Eastern, Western, and Central Uganda.
The programme will focus on enterprise development in fields such as information technology, network infrastructure, digital innovation, marketing, green energy and solar technology, facility management, commercial services, and professional consulting.
To qualify, businesses must be at least 50 percent women-owned or majority women-shareholder, have been operational for at least one year, and must earn annual revenue of at least UGX 60 million.
They are also required to present a valid tax compliance certificate and have active women-led management. Priority will be given to small and medium-sized enterprises, youth-led companies run by young women aged 23 to 35, and businesses owned by women with disabilities.
