By Gift Briton
Kenyan women entrepreneurs now have more significant opportunities to participate in government tenders after a pioneering research project by Strathmore Business School (SBS) exposed inadequacies in the Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO) initiative.
AGPO, established by the Kenyan government in 2013, is an affirmative action program that facilitates the participation of enterprises owned by women, youth, and persons with disabilities in government procurement.
Under this program, all public entities must award at least 30% of their tenders to enterprises owned by women, youth, and persons with disability.
However, over a decade later, women’s participation in government tenders remains low, and systematic barriers have been identified as a significant hindrance.
Further, the SBS research revealed government entities’ lack of compliance with affirmative action. For instance, in 2020, the researchers found that the total value of tenders awarded under the AGPO program was Ksh 26.5 billion, against a total national procurement budget of about Ksh 1.2 trillion. This means that AGPO’s share was only 2.2% of the total procurement budget, far below the 30% provided by law.
Under the Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) program funded by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC), SBS embarked on a research project to assess the effectiveness of the AGPO in promoting women’s economic empowerment and identify appropriate interventions that can be scaled up to enhance their participation in public procurement programs.
The SBS research project has contributed to significant policy reforms in Kenya’s public procurement landscape through policy dialogue, capacity building, and awareness campaigns.
A notable change is the inclusion of consortium bidding provisions in proposed amendments to the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, allowing women entrepreneurs to pool resources for larger tenders. This change happened after the researcher highlighted that most women entrepreneurs preferred consortium bidding to be included in the law.
Additionally, the National Treasury launched the e-Government Procurement (e-GP) system in 2023 to streamline processes, enhance transparency, and ensure timely payments. This happened after corruption, complete lack of information, inadequate information, misinformation and misconceptions about AGPO, a complex and burdensome tendering process, non-compliance of the procuring entities with the law, skewed procurement processes in favor of larger, more established enterprises, and failure of procuring entities to pay suppliers on time were highlighted as key barriers.
Capacity-building programs conducted through the project equipped women entrepreneurs with skills in bid preparation, tax compliance, and navigating the tender process.
The project also created knowledge-sharing platforms and sensitization campaigns, closing critical information gaps.
Partnering with key policy actors, including the National Treasury and Public Procurement Regulatory Authority, there is tangible evidence of strengthening compliance and collaborative efforts to enhance AGPO’s impact.
Furthermore, in March 2023, the President announced a significant increase in funding for the Women Enterprise Fund, raising it from Ksh. 4 billion to Ksh. 13.5 billion annually. The Fund will be accessible via a digital platform, simplifying the financing process.
Increasing funds and making them available to individual women means they can be borrowed to service AGPO tenders. This may contribute to addressing the challenge of access to finance, which was also found to be among the significant barriers.
These interventions are bearing fruits. Since 2021, the value of AGPO tenders has grown by 10% annually. This reflects the government’s commitment to empowering women, paving the way for increased participation of women entrepreneurs in public procurement.
