Establishment

The Fund was established vide Legal Notice No. 21 of 21st February, 2014 – Public Finance Management (Uwezo Fund) Regulations, 2014 and was launched by His Excellency the President of the Republic of Kenya on 8th September 2013.

Since inception, the Fund has disbursed more than Kshs 7.2 billion and directly supported 1,124,221 beneficiaries of which 69% are Female and 31% Male through provision of affordable and accessible credit, capacity building on entrepreneurship skills, basics on book keeping and market linkages and networking.

Overall, the absorption rate in the constituencies averages at 107.5%, indicating very impressive uptake of the Fund, with over Kshs. 1.5B having been revolved. In addition, the Fund has recorded a cumulative repayment of Kshs. 2.8 billion since its inception which translates to 40.6 % repayment rate.

Uwezo Fund is a Government empowerment Fund that was operationalized through The Public Finance Management (Uwezo Fund), Regulations in 2014. The Fund was established to address the socio-economic empowerment of women, youth and persons with disabilities through expansion of access to finance to facilitate initiation and expansion of their enterprises. Further, the Fund provides capacity enhancement towards building strong and sustainable enterprises across the constituencies. Through this the Fund envisions an equitable social-economic transformation of youth, women and persons with disabilities.

The Fund is revolving in nature and its operations are based in the constituencies. The Objectives of the Fund are;

• To expand access to finances for the youth, women and persons with disabilities at the constituency level for businesses and enterprises development;
• To generate gainful self- employment for the youth and women; and
• To model an alternative framework in funding community driven development initiatives.