http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/161342 2026-04-08T21:02:10Z http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/166728 Effects of Accessing Childcare Services on Women’s Economic Empowerment Mbithi, Mary; Keeru, Rachael; Mwikali, Carolyn; Kabiru, Diana; Muendo, Gideon Childcare has gained traction in recent times as the need for childcare services has increased. Globally, over 40% of all children under primary school require structured childcare but lack access to it. While taking care of children is fundamental to their well-being, there is a consensus in the literature that the amount of time allocated to care work is negatively correlated with female labour force participation. For children below three years, the provision of subsidized early childcare services still remains a huge gap. Although some privately owned early childcare services exist in Kenya, they remain few and far costly, a factor which has constrained their access by women who have children under four years of age and are involved in micro–small–sized enterprises or employed in the informal sector. In 2022, UoN WEE Hub, in collaboration with the Kenya National Bureau of Standards, conducted a study among women involved in cross-border trade in Busia County and Namanga counties, Kenya’s two largest border crossing towns. This study aimed to analyze the participation of women in cross-border trade and establish the challenges women face in cross-border trade. Although several challenges were identified in this study, the study also established the need for child care for women and men involved in cross-border trade as a necessity, with 47 percent of businesswomen interviewed saying they needed child care but was not able to access it mainly due to unavailability, quality and cost concerns. Only 10 percent of the respondents reported being able to access a daycare or employ a house help. As a coping strategy, 40 percent of these women traders either go to work with the children or leave the child(ren) with relatives or friends, a factor that affected their concentration on the business as they opened their business late, or closed early, spend time on telephone addressing childcare issues, while sometimes missed work altogether. 94 percent of those women traders observed that childcare responsibilities have negatively affected their business. Having established the need for childcare in Busia, UoN WEE Hub, in partnership with the Collaborative Centre for Gender and Development (CCGD), the Ministry of East African Community, arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), and regional development, and the association of women in cross-border trade established a childcare centre at the Busia border in 2021. This facility allows women and men involved in cross-border trade to pay KES 50 per day for childcare. This study analyzes this childcare center’s effects on women’s businesses one year after benefiting from the facility. Report 2024-09-01T00:00:00Z http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/166727 Contribution of Childcare Centre to the Nutritional Status and Dietary Practices of Children Aged Two to Four Years and Wellbeing of Caregivers Makau, Wambui Kogi; Thuku, Linet Njeri In the last twenty years, the number of women in the labour force has increased leading to heightened challenges for women engaged in formal and informal employment as they navigate the paired roles as employees and childcare givers. According to the International Labour Organization (2019, 59.6% of women in Kenya are employed, constituting 62.9% of the national labour force. Consequently, their significant role in the country’s economy cannot be overlooked. In August 2021, the Collaborative Center for Gender and Development, in partnership with the University of Nairobi, Women Economic Empowerment Hub (UoN WEE Hub), established a child daycare centre in Busia town with the aim of supporting women with children under the age of four years while in employment. This initiative emerged from a consultative meeting in which the women raised concerns over the numerous risks associated with bringing their children to the marketplace (workplace) and the negative effects it has on their businesses. In order to assess the impact of the daycare centre on the well-being of the caregivers and the development of the children, a monitoring and evaluation system with four objectives was put in place and baseline data was collected in October 2022. The monitoring and evaluation activities would be conducted every six months for two years until 2024 to monitor the impact of the establishment of the daycare centre on the well-being of caregivers as well as the diet and nutritional status of the children. The baseline survey revealed a significant consensus among caregivers, with 96.4% expressing agreement that the daycare centre played a crucial role in enhancing their well-being. They cited a reduction in the burden of worry for the children’s safety and acknowledged that it afforded them time to pursue other activities, including business, attendance of family events, and engagement in leisure activities. At the time of the baseline survey, the prevalence of wasting, stunting, underweight and overweight among the children enrolled in the daycare centre was 4.2%, 12.2%, 15.1%, and 22.9%, respectively. The girls were more affected by undernutrition than the boys, and less affected by overnutrition (overweight and obesity). The most consumed food groups were oils and fat (96.4%), energy-giving foods (89.3%) and ‘other’ vegetables such as tomato, onion and cabbage (87.5%). The least consumed food groups were pulses (12.5%), eggs (12.5%), nuts and seeds (19.6%) and Vitamin A-rich fruits (19.6%). The meals at the daycare centre covered up some deficiencies (pulses, Vitamin A-rich tubers and fruits) in the home-based meals. Among the caregivers, the most consumed foods fall in the vegetable category (98.2%) energy giving foods (96.4%) and beverages (83.9%). On the other hand, the least consumed foods fall in the category of foods of animal origin, soft drinks, fast foods and some types of fruits. The majority (85.7%) of the respondents observed that the daycare centre greatly contributed to increased physical activity of the child (82.1%), increased tendency to be independent (82.1%), and progressive mental development and (82.1%) better socialization skills. In light of the awareness, knowledge and practice of child-related policies among the Centre’s service providers, half of the respondents were moderately aware of the existence of documents while the other half was either slightly or very aware. Half of the respondents had middle-level knowledge, whereas the remaining three had high-level knowledge of the policies. The following seven recommendations emerged from this baseline survey 1) There is an urgent need to address increasing overnutrition; 2) There is a need for continuous capacity building of the service providers employed at the daycare centre to keep them updated and equipped to enable them to sustainably offer exemplary services from an informed premise; 3) The daycare centre should integrate nutrition education sessions into its regular periodic meetings with the parents/childcare givers by inviting an expert to educate, update and enhance their knowledge of high-nutrient value and nutrient-dense foods, especially fish. The topics could include the need for a diversified diet, food groups, nutrient-dense foods high-value foods, benefits of expressing breast milk and how to, motivational topics to convert child caregivers from inert holders of knowledge to implementers; 4) The centre should establish a link with facility or community-based growth monitoring services and together plan for monitoring the growth of the children, identification and management of detected cases of malnutrition; 5) The centre service providers should be trained on early detection of at-risk children whom they then refer for follow-up through child caregivers; 6) The daycare centre should have the staff trained on how to make yoghurt for use at the centre as well as for sale (income generation); yoghurt making can be extended to schools based 4K Clubs; 7) The centre should also introduce crop farming by establishing kitchen gardens. Baseline Study 2024-09-01T00:00:00Z http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/164402 Evaluating the Effectiveness of Incubating Women’s Collectives / Group Businesses for Replication Meroka, Agnes; Oleche, Martine; Jumba, Elizabeth; Udalang, Valarie Women’s entrepreneurship and economic empowerment are crucial indicators of global economic development as they contribute to employment creation and economic growth. In Kenya, about 36% of Small and Medium Enterprises are female-owned and contribute around 20% to Kenya’s GDP (Oxfam, 2023). Entrepreneurship provides a pathway for women to build their capacity and overcome barriers to leadership and decision-making (Harbison, 1956). While women running individual businesses/individual entrepreneurship has always been the norm, women have become increasingly determined to achieve economic empowerment through a variety of means, including collective/group businesses. An increasing number of women entrepreneurs have come together to run collective businesses for their individual and collective growth, financial stability, and economic empowerment. Further, research shows that women entrepreneurs form groups to address some of the challenges they face individually. This however, is not new in Kenya, women have, particularly after independence in 1963 come together and bought land and built homes, etc., and later in the eighties and nineties, got involved in businesses that were quite substantive such as real estate. The history of women’s groups in Kenya is well documented and it is the reason why in 1976 the establishment of the Women’s Bureau, the Government took this strategy of working in groups and started funding small groups as is seen today in WEF, NGAAF, Youth Fund and Hustler Fund, and now even the commercial banks have taken this strategy to support women’s businesses. Women’s groups continue to be channels for women’s economic empowerment through collective entrepreneurial activities. However, despite being the fastest-growing category of entrepreneurs, women remain the most underutilized source of economic growth. Women entrepreneurs and women groups/collectives in Kenya also continue to face several challenges, such as limited growth and a lack of finances. In light of the aforementioned challenges and the vision of full realization of WEE, the UoN WEE Hub initiated the Women-focused Business Incubation (WBI) project to assess what works in growing women’s businesses/enterprises through incubation. According to the American National Business Incubation Association (NBIA, 2015), business incubation is a support process that accelerates the successful development of start-up and fledgling companies by providing entrepreneurs with an array of targeted resources and services. Various national governments recognize business incubation programs as the mechanism to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Through the Incubation project, the UoN WEE Hub, in collaboration with other partners, seeks to redress existing challenges to women’s economic empowerment by incubating individual women and women groups’ enterprises to assess what works in these initiatives for possible replication. The UoN WEE Hub Women’s Business Incubation (WBI) project evaluates how women-focused incubation models contribute to the growth of businesses and enterprises in Kenya. Through the WBI project, The WEE Hub and its partners, CrawnTrust, TechnoServe and Sweet and Dried Enterprises Limited, and with technology transfer support from the Kenya Industrial Estates (KIE), the Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute (KIRDI), the UoN Environmental and Biosystems Engineering (EBE) and support from Equity Bank are incubating 320 individual women-owned enterprises and 16 women’s collective/group businesses by 2025, which will then be replicated, with the UoN WEE Hub conducting monitoring and evaluation every six months. Through Access to credit, Linkage to information and technology, capacity building, Access to markets, and Mentorship, the project aims to achieve the growth and expansion of women-owned businesses and increase in revenue. Most importantly, informed policy and policy change are expected as part of the high-level outcome. Some services and training provided during incubation include Access to credit, Linkage to information and technology, Capacity building, Access to markets, and Mentorship. To understand the needs of the collectives/group businesses, the UoN WEE Hub, in collaboration with CrawnTrust, conducted a baseline survey of 17 women collective/group businesses in 12 counties in Kenya, i.e., Nairobi, Kajiado, Kilifi, Kwale, Kisumu, Mombasa, Tharaka Nithi, Meru Kitui, Nyandarua, Turkana and Busia. The results from the fieldwork demonstrated various challenges that women-owned businesses face, ranging from limited finances, knowledge of the use of technology, and market access, among others, hence the need for incubation of women-focused businesses. The baseline study’s findings revealed that: Women’s business collectives were founded on humble beginnings, frequently by women with a similar goal, after recognizing the needs of women-led businesses at the local level. The findings indicate that the collectives were formed to support the business needs of individual women at the grassroots. This is confirmed by a lot of literature on women’s groups in Kenya which have been in existence for a long time. Individuals join groups/collectives for growth opportunities, which are more accessible to groups than individuals. Furthermore, through the groups, individuals can address business challenges that would be difficult to manage individually. Most groups are registered as social groups/chamas with the Registrar of Societies thus enabling them to register and manage bank accounts. Other kinds of registration, such as business or company registration are inaccessible to most groups since they cannot always meet all the requirements. Table banking was identified as the most common group activity for most collectives/groups and the members’ primary source of affordable loans. Some of the challenges the collectives face include, limited access to established markets for their products, limited availability of technology and skills, limited access to credit facilities and affordable loans, and limited opportunities for growth and scaling up. Baseline Survey Report, 2024 2024-02-01T00:00:00Z http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/handle/11295/163872 Evaluating the Effectiveness of Business Incubation on Women’s Enterprises for Upscaling Udalang, Valarie The University of Nairobi, Women’s Economic Empowerment Hub (UoN-WEE Hub)’s Women’s Business Incubation (WBI) project is a three-year evaluation program on how women-focused incubation models contribute to the growth of businesses and enterprises in Kenya. The project’s overall objective is to assess the extent to which women-focused incubation models contribute to the growth of businesses/enterprises in Kenya. Through the WBI project, The WEE Hub in partnership with partner organizations including CrawnTrust and TechnoServe is incubating 320 individual women-owned enterprises and 17 women’s collective/group businesses in 16 counties for replication by 2025, with the UoN WEE Hub conducting monitoring and evaluation every six months. The WBI project aims to achieve the growth and expansion of women-owned businesses through the provision of incubation services including; access to credit, linkage to information and technology, Capacity building, market access, and Mentorship. Most importantly, informed policy and policy change are expected to be part of the high-level outcomes. In line with the realization of the access to markets pillar of the incubation project, the UoN WEE Hub facilitated representatives of eight (8) out of the 17 women collectives under the incubation program to exhibit their collectives’ products during the Kenya Food Event and Exhibition held at the Sarit Expo Center between 5th and 7th of September 2023. Report 2023-09-01T00:00:00Z