The programme was implemented through the Bold Woman Fund, the non-profit arm of Bold in Africa, which focuses on empowering emerging creatives—particularly in the fashion industry—through structured business development support.
According to Bold in Africa Managing Director, Nunu Mugyenyi Kalisa, the initiative was delivered under the EU-funded IGNITE Culture programme, which between 2022 and 2023 trained 40 women entrepreneurs under the age of 35 across four cohorts.
Participants underwent training in business management, financial planning, and entrepreneurship, alongside personalised mentorship aimed at helping them transition from informal creative work into structured, income-generating enterprises.
“The programme focused on the business side of running creative enterprises. Many participants shifted from treating their ventures as hobbies to managing them as real businesses,” Kalisa said.
She added that the programme also linked beneficiaries to local and international markets through an e-commerce platform developed under the project, allowing customers globally to access fashion products made in Uganda.
Kalisa said many of the entrepreneurs who completed the programme have remained active and expanded their operations beyond their initial capacity.
“We saw significant growth in sales, increased production capacity and businesses pivoting to more sustainable business models. Many of those businesses are still operating today and are much bigger than when they joined the programme,” she said.
Following the conclusion of the EU-funded phase, Bold in Africa expanded similar interventions through partnerships with other development organisations, bringing the total number of supported creatives to more than 120.
Kalisa said the project also strengthened the organisation’s internal systems, particularly in grant management, accountability, and donor reporting, which helped position it for additional funding opportunities.
“The project taught us how to manage donor-funded programmes effectively. It opened doors for us and gave us the experience needed to implement larger projects,” she said.
However, she noted that Uganda’s fashion and creative entrepreneurs continue to face major structural challenges, especially in accessing international markets.
These include high shipping costs, limited production capacity among small-scale manufacturers, and difficulties maintaining consistent product quality for export markets.
“We faced challenges throughout the supply chain, from production to fulfilling international orders. Small businesses often have limited capacity, and maintaining consistency becomes difficult when exporting products,” she said.
Kalisa said continued investment in the creative sector would be key to enabling more young entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses and strengthen Uganda’s growing fashion industry.
“We’re seeing fashion increasingly being taken seriously as a profession. Entrepreneurs are taking their businesses more seriously, and that is exciting because it shows the sector is maturing,” she said.