15.5% are contractors

17% are quantity surveyors

And at the artisanal level – welders, carpenters, masons – women represent a mere 3%..
The Biashara Pawa initiative under IYBA-SEED is stepping in to expand the space for women and youth in infrastructure by creating platforms for dialogue, learning, partnerships, and storytelling. These conversations are unlocking doors to financing, technical skills, and new markets – ensuring women and youth are not left behind but lead the change.
Infrastructure is where Kenya’s growth literally meets the ground. The question is – will women and youth watch from the sidelines or build the future themselves?
The Biashara Pawa initiative is anchored in deep collaboration between IYBASEED Kenya, SNV, Responsible Business Consulting, Kaizen Consultancy, Wisehub, EldOHUB, and Nakuru Box in the three target counties – Nakuru, Uasin Gishu, and Kisumu – to co-create dialogue events, identify role models, amplify stories, and inspire action.

On 25th September 2025, Eldohub hosted their inaugural Biashara Power Dialogue Series in Eldoret under the theme “Women and Youth in Nation Building – From Ideas to Impact”. Working with key partners Responsible Business Consulting and Kaizen Consultancy implementers in SNV Kenya’s initiative under Investing in Young Businesses in Africa – Supporting Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Development (IYBA-SEED). The Biashara Pawa project focuses on enabling women and youth entrepreneurs in typically male-dominated sectors such as: Manufacturing & Engineering, Green and Circular Economy, Agriculture and Agribusiness, Technology, Financial Services, Infrastructure development, Blue economy, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene.

The event, convened at Eldohub’s offices, brought together women and youth entrepreneurs, policymakers, ecosystem support organizations, financiers, and community leaders to spotlight the critical role of young people and women in driving Kenya’s inclusive economic growth.

The day began with a powerful showcase of 25 women and youth entrepreneur role models, followed by registration and a warm welcome from the master of ceremonies, Charity Mbithe. In his opening remarks, Charles Sakari, Resource Mobilisation Lead of Eldohub, emphasized the importance of supporting entrepreneurship in under-represented sectors, highlighting Eldohub’s role as a hub for innovation and capacity-building in the region.

Nduta Ndirangu of SNV Kenya followed with remarks underscoring the ecosystem’s collective responsibility to unlock opportunities for women and youth entrepreneurs. She stressed that inclusive entrepreneurship is not just a matter of equity but a catalyst for sustainable development across Kenya’s counties.

The program then transitioned into the panel dialogue session, moderated by Susan Njoroge of Responsible Business Consulting (RBC).

The panel discussion centered on the entrepreneurial journey of women and youth – from idea generation through to startup, growth, and sustainability. Panelists included: 

• CPA. Victorine Kapkiai, Chief Officer, Youth Affairs and Sports, Uasin Gishu County
• Brian Rono, Micro Small Enterprise Authority (MSEA) Officer
• Caroline Watwati, Founder, Cee Natural, Kenya
• Everlyn Kemboi, Branch Manager, Cooperative Bank
• Lavender Mutenyo Simiyu, Founder, Agrifield Solutions for Sustainable Farming

The conversations were candid and practical. The Biashara Pawa women role model entrepreneurs, Lavender and Caroline, shared their personal journeys of turning ideas into viable businesses, describing the importance for bridging the entrepreneurial gap of knowledge and skills, understanding your markets/customers, and persisting despite setbacks.  While acknowledging the trust gap many women and youth entrepreneurs face when approaching financial institutions and the critical need for business data, Everlyn highlighted that rapidly shifting landscape of lending, with new and adaptive financial products as well as capacity building initiatives to increase inclusivity in lending from financial institutions to grow businesses. Victorine, emphasized the county government’s critical role in policy support, capacity-building and the existing initiatives in place to support women and youth entrepreneurship in the county. MSEA outlined how they support micro and small enterprises formalize their businesses, and Brian further highlighted existing programmes that provide access capital and markets to support entrepreneurs and businesses in the county.

Audience questions deepened the dialogue, surfacing issues such as the need for concerted effort towards an enabling regulatory environment including tax and regulations that supported business growth; growing the need for financial institutions to support micro and small business with access to capital especially tailored to women and youth entrepreneurs who rarely have sureties or collateral; the importance of asking for help early in the entrepreneurial journey; and the need for entrepreneurs to expand their understanding on the opportunities for local and regional market linkages. The panel concluded with reflections from each panelist, emphasizing the importance of entrepreneurial knowledge and capacity building, discipline and resilience networks and collaboration, making the most of existing opportunities, and already existing support systems. 

In the afternoon, participants engaged in breakout sessions across eight key sectors to generate actionable recommendations. Each group, guided by a sector expert explored three areas: priority challenges, entrepreneurial solutions, and ecosystem or policy actions.

The discussions revealed common barriers such as limited access to finance, inadequate networks, skill gaps, and systemic gender or age biases. Yet, participants proposed innovative community-driven solutions, including peer-to-peer support models, digital tools for market access, and collective approaches such as cooperatives and savings groups. Importantly, groups stressed the need for ecosystem actors: government, industry associations, and ecosystem organisations;  to create enabling environments through targeted training, simplified compliance processes, and accessible financing products.

The plenary presentations that followed reflected the richness of the breakout conversations. Each group distilled its findings into three key challenges, three community-driven solutions, and two to three ecosystem recommendations, forming a collective agenda for action in Uasin Gishu and beyond.

Masterfully guided by the master of ceremonies, Charity Mbithe from Kaizen Consultancy, the Eldoret event demonstrated the power of dialogue, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing in accelerating women and youth entrepreneurship. Over 80% of the event’s participants highlighted that the event helped them understand the importance inclusive entrepreneurship of women and youth in under-represented sectors.

Looking ahead, Eldohub will host two more Biashara Pawa events in 2026, and actively continue recognize women and youth role models in under-represented sector. The imperative to raise awareness, foster the entrepreneurship ecosystem, and unlock opportunities for women and youth entrepreneurs to fully participate in socio-economic development for their county and the nation at large; remains at the heart of Eldohub’s engagement in the Biashara Pawa campaign.  

Two directors at the University of Iowa — Patrick Johanns and Kelly Bedeian — received federal funds to help train a group of 30 women living near Lake Victoria in Kenya on entrepreneurial skills and tools for breaking into the fishing business. The idea behind the project is to help women run their fish selling operations without being forced to rely on exploitative male fish suppliers.

The increasing scarcity of fish in the region has put female fish traders in a vulnerable position, say activists like Caroline Odera, founder of the Kenya-based organization Women in Sustainable Enterprises. Odera describes the “fish for sex” trade that has proliferated the region as a menace.

“Over the recent years, fish has been on the decline from the lake due to overfishing and climatic changes, among others,” Odera wrote to the Press-Citizen in an email. “This has resulted in the women fishmongers being subjected to sexual exploitation and transactional sex practices to get fish in order to resale for their daily income.”

Odera is collaborating on the training with Johanns, UI’s director of Part-time Business Analytics Graduate Program, and Bedeian, assistant director at UI’s Institute for International Business.

Funding for the project comes from the U.S. Department of State’s new Citizen Diplomacy Fund, administered by the Partners of the Americas organization. Money from the fund is awarded for public service projects to past participants of government-sponsored exchange programs.

In a proposal for the grant, Johanns and Bedeian said they would introduce women to a new app, called AquaRech, which promises to connect fish traders with a vetted network of fish farmers, cutting out the middleman, fish suppliers. The app was designed by Dave Okech and completed at the University of Iowa’s six-week Venture School.

In the proposal, applicants said the app was expected for release in October 2019. In an email to the Press-Citizen, however, Okech said the app is still under development and is expected to be released in April 2020.

Okech describes the app as something like “Uber Fish.” When finalized, fishmongers can use their smartphones to buy fish directly from the farmers. The idea is that direct access will cut the cost of the fist for the traders and give women access to information about the fish farmers.

As Okech explains it, the app works in part because fish farmers themselves see the benefit. They would like to get higher prices for their fish by cutting out the middle man.

“Women bore the biggest brunt because they had to succumb to the sex for fish trade in order to access fish,” Okech said. “Yet genuine fish farmers were also struggling to reach them.”

The app is just one piece of training. Odera estimates the most effective way to help the fish trade in Kenya is through multiple training opportunities, not just one. She’s hopeful her partnership with UI staff will continue in years to come.

“I believe in ‘teaching people how to fish,’ not giving,” Odera said. “Because in that way, they are empowered with knowledge for self-reliance and they get ignited to think beyond the box and do things differently.”

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This article was First Published Here