The Women Who Hold Up Uganda’s Informal Economy — and Why They’re Uncounted
Walk through any Ugandan market, farm or roadside trading centre and the informal economy has a face that is disproportionately female. Women grow, sort, sell, and carry much of the country’s day-to-day economic activity. Yet in the data that shapes policy and funding, their work is persistently undercounted — unpaid, informal, or simply invisible to systems built for formal employment. This brief examines the gap between women’s central economic role and their statistical invisibility, and why closing it matters.
This is both an equity issue and a measurement issue. Funders focused on youth employment, gender and inclusion need evidence about women’s work to act well — and that evidence is exactly what the informal data gap withholds.
Central to the economy, marginal in the data
Women’s labour is foundational to Uganda’s agriculture, trade and services — in floriculture, for example, women make up the large majority of the workforce. But much of women’s economic contribution happens in forms that formal measurement handles poorly: unpaid family labour, casual and seasonal work, home-based enterprise, and micro-trade. The result is a systematic undercount — women do a great deal of the work and appear in far too little of the data.
The specific gaps
- Earnings and reliability — what women in informal work actually earn, and how predictably.
- Unpaid and undervalued labour — the work that never enters a wage statistic.
- Financial inclusion — women’s access to accounts, credit and the income records that unlock them.
- Vulnerability and wellbeing — including the mental-health and precarity dimensions that hit women hardest.
Why this is fundable and urgent
Major funders have made women’s economic empowerment and youth employment central priorities. But empowerment programmes need a baseline — you cannot show you have improved women’s economic position if you never measured it. A worker-level data layer that specifically captures women’s informal work would give inclusion funders the evidence to target, design and prove their programmes. This is a gap that sits directly on the funding agenda of the largest philanthropic actors in the region.
Basket makes women’s informal work visible
Basket Advisory registers workers and captures consented, structured data through the economic touchpoints women already use — markets, cooperatives, payments — making visible the work that formal systems miss. We partner with inclusion funders and researchers as the data instrument.
Discuss a research partnership →How Basket Advisory contributes
- Gender-disaggregated worker data from real economic touchpoints.
- Visibility for unpaid and informal women’s labour.
- Financial-inclusion evidence — who has access, who doesn’t, and why.
- Baselines and outcome tracking for women’s-empowerment programmes.
Funding women’s economic empowerment?
We partner as the measurement layer for gender and inclusion research — making women’s informal work visible, measurable and provable. Let’s talk about the fit with your programme.
Start a conversation →Related reading
- Uganda’s invisible workforce: the data gap
- How digital wages could bank casual workers
- Mental health in the informal economy
The process in practice
Mistakes that cost you
The errors that cost most on the women who hold up uganda’s informal economy — and why they’re uncounted are usually avoidable: acting without the right documentation, missing deadlines, relying on unofficial intermediaries, and failing to keep records. Each adds cost, delay or risk. A methodical, documented approach avoids nearly all of them.
A practical read on the rules
The requirements behind the women who hold up uganda’s informal economy — and why they’re uncounted follow a logic worth understanding: each confirms something an official or partner needs to know. Prepare with that in mind and you supply the right evidence first time, sparing yourself the delays that catch the unprepared.
Budgeting time and money
Plan the women who hold up uganda’s informal economy — and why they’re uncounted around two variables: cost, which is largely fixed and modest, and time, which you influence directly through preparation. A complete, accurate submission moves quickly; an incomplete one drags. Building in a small buffer protects you either way.
Playing the long game
Treating the women who hold up uganda’s informal economy — and why they’re uncounted as a long-term foundation pays off. The registrations and records you establish underpin future access to finance and opportunity, and a business that builds them properly early carries a lasting advantage over one that patches them together later.
The bottom line
The essentials of the women who hold up uganda’s informal economy — and why they’re uncounted come down to preparation and follow-through. Have your documents ready before you start, use official channels rather than shortcuts, keep a record of every step, and never miss a deadline. In the Ugandan context these four habits prevent most of the delays, penalties and disputes people run into — the rest is detail that falls into place once the basics are solid.
Don't go it alone when it counts
For routine aspects of the women who hold up uganda’s informal economy — and why they’re uncounted, good preparation is enough. For the complex or high-stakes parts, expert guidance is worth it — it protects you from costly missteps and frees you to focus on running the business rather than untangling a problem after the fact.
Verify before you act
Because the specifics around the women who hold up uganda’s informal economy — and why they’re uncounted — rates, fees, deadlines — are periodically revised, it is worth confirming the current position with the relevant authority before you rely on it. Treating your knowledge as something to refresh rather than fix keeps you compliant as things change.