Socio-Economic Empowerment Directorate

This program is aimed at improving the welfare of women and girls. The program includes providing functional skills on entrepreneurship and access to Government Affirmative Action Funds and Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO) to Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities. Mentorship programs for young women and the National Sanitary Pads program for school girls.

Functions of the Socio-Economic Empowerment Directorate include:

  1. Promotion of equitable socio-economic development between women and men;
  2. Sensitization and capacity building on gender related funds;
  3. Sensitization of women, youth and Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) on preferences and reservations on the 30% procurement provisions;
  4. Training, coaching and mentoring women, youth and PWD entrepreneurs on AGPO;
  5. Coordination of the Sanitary Towel distribution programme;
  6. Coordination of socio-economic empowerment grant for GBV survivors;
  7. Coordinate implementation of Uwezo Fund, Women Enterprise Fund(WEF) and National Government Affirmative Action Funds (NGAAF);
  8. Linking of beneficiaries with key financial institutions;
  9. Carry out periodical impact assessments of all gender related funds;
  10. Disseminate data on implementation of all gender funds;
  11. Monitoring and reporting on funding of gender programmes and projects;
  12. Appraisal and recommendation of CSOs and groups for funding;
  13. Monitoring and reporting on funding of gender programmes and projects; and,
  14. Researching and benchmarking on best practices on funding opportunities for target groups.

Key achievements

  • Development of Women Economic Empowerment Strategy 2015 to harness the momentum of women economic empowerment initiatives at national and county levels.
  • Awards on Socio-economic programmes: Kenya has received the awards on socio-economic empowerment such as the African Public Service AU award for the best socio-economic programmes in Africa in June, 2015 and the Commonwealth Award for Women in Procurement – Government award (2015).
  • Capacity building on Affirmative Action Funds and Government Opportunities including AGPO: A total of 3,992 (600 in 2015/16, 2892 in 2016/17 and 500 in 2017/18 F/Y) women, youth