Beyond aid: How Kenyan women are redefining economic empowerment
A group of women once known for table banking now runs a thriving manufacturing collective.
What you need to know:
- Through training, childcare innovations, and policy advocacy, these women are moving from survival to leadership—shaping laws, businesses, and futures.
In Busia, Turkana, and Kajiado, they are proving that empowerment means agency, not aid. They’re running enterprises, shaping gender policies, and redefining what women-led economic power looks like.
On a warm Friday afternoon in Nairobi, the University of Nairobi’s Women’s Economic Empowerment Hub (Wee Hub) buzzed with a quiet kind of triumph. Women from Busia, Turkana, and Kajiado—their hands calloused from years of labour and resilience—stood beside professors and policymakers, all gathered to celebrate a five-year journey that began with a single question: What does real empowerment look like for the African woman?
Dr Agnes Meroka, co-lead of the Wee Hub, smiled as she looked across the room. “This is our collective work,” she said, her voice equal parts gratitude and determination. “We have moved from research to results and from data to dignity.”
It is a journey that has transformed not just lives but systems, reshaping how Kenya thinks about women, work, and worth. In the dusty streets of Busia, near the Kenya-Uganda border, a quiet revolution is unfolding—one powered not by politics or protest, but by flour, fish, and faith.
Here, a group of women once known for table banking now run a thriving manufacturing collective. Their leader, Florence Otieno, still remembers the early days. “We had land, equipment, and a dream,” she says, adjusting her brightly patterned headscarf. “But we didn’t have knowledge. We didn’t know how to grow.”
Through training by the Wee Hub and partners like Crown Trust, her group learned business management, record keeping, and financial literacy. They invested in new machines. Today, their products—Silai Boost Flour, a fortified pumpkin seed blend, and ready-to-eat Omena (silver cyprinid) and Obambla (dried open tilapia)—sit proudly on supermarket shelves.
They have received recognition from the Busia County Government, certification from the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs), and attention from the Export Promotion Council. Kilimo Trust even signed a partnership with them to expand into animal feed production. “When we walk into a supermarket and see our brand, we feel powerful. We used to be consumers—now we are producers,” Florence says, her smile breaking wide.
The Hub’s work has reached more than 200 individual women entrepreneurs and 12 collectives across 16 counties. The impact? A six per cent business growth rate, a 65 per cent increase in incomes, and 82 per cent of participants reporting faster expansion. But the numbers tell only part of the story.
In Kajiado, Sara Kone and her team of women dairy farmers were on the verge of giving up. They had the machines—a pasteuriser, a fridge, a sealing unit—but no confidence or capital to continue. “When the university team came, they told us to start small—even with 50 litres of milk,” Sara recalls. “They trained us, helped us get Kebs certification, and most of all, they believed in us.”
Today, the group produces branded yoghurt, employs young women, and mentors girls in business. “Now, our daughters know they can build something of their own,” Sara says.
Capacity
This is what empowerment looks like—not charity, but capacity; not aid, but agency.
In Busia’s bustling border markets, women traders crisscross Kenya and Uganda daily, hauling goods under the scorching sun—often with babies strapped to their backs. Their unpaid care burden is immense.
Recognising this, the Hub and its partners launched a model childcare centre for women traders—a simple but transformative solution. “The moment we opened the centre, the women’s productivity doubled,” says Rachel Keeru, the researcher who led the project. “Even civil servants started enrolling their children.”
The Busia pilot has since inspired similar childcare models in Kajiado, Machakos, and Nairobi’s City Park, turning a local solution into a national conversation. It even informed the Busia County Gender Policy, embedding care work into county development plans. “For the first time, women could trade without fear—their children were safe, and their minds were free,” Rachel says.
Behind these visible changes lies an intricate web of advocacy and reform. Since 2021, the Wee Hub has contributed to over 20 national and county-level policies and bills, including the Social Protection Act, the Public Finance Management (Amendment) Bill, and Credit Guarantee Scheme Regulations. Dr Meroka calls this “the architecture of change.”
“When women shape laws, they shape their futures,” she says.
At the heart of this work are two dynamic networks—the Networking and Alliance Building for Women’s Economic Empowerment and the County Women's Economic Empowerment Network—spanning over 26 counties. Together, they have built a feminist movement that connects the market stalls to Parliament.
“Ninety-seven per cent of the women we’ve worked with now understand their rights,” says Dr Meroka. “And 93 per cent hold leadership positions. That’s what real empowerment means.”
What sets the Hub apart is its grounding in research, not just as an academic exercise but as a tool for social change. “We don’t just publish reports,” says Dr Nkatha, one of the Hub’s lead researchers. “We translate findings into policies and programmes that touch real lives.”
This approach has caught global attention. The Hub’s work aligns with Kenya’s National Care Policy, influences gender budgeting frameworks, and provides a model for women’s economic empowerment that other African countries are now studying.
In Turkana, women once excluded from community decision-making are now leading land governance committees in the oil-rich county. In Nairobi, female legislators are pushing for laws that make sexual predators compensate survivors. In Busia, traders are redefining cross-border commerce. It’s a mosaic of progress—woven together by research, resilience, and relentless women.
At the close of the Hub’s validation forum, Dr Meroka stood beside her team and smiled. The applause that followed wasn’t just for their data or policies; it was for the thousands of women whose stories now fill Kenya’s economic narrative. “We started with a promise,” she said softly. “Now we are building power—one woman, one business, one policy at a time.”
Kenya’s women are no longer waiting for inclusion—they are claiming it. From markets to boardrooms, from care centres to county assemblies, they are rewriting the story of economic freedom. And as one of them put it best, during a break between sessions in Nairobi: “Empowerment is not when someone gives you power. It’s when you realise you had it all along.”
