Why women, youths and persons living with disability are not fully tapping state tenders

Sylvia Kamau, a groceries and poultry farmer from Kiambu initially ran an unregistered business having taken up from her father, a retired teacher who started a poultry business from a Sacco loan.

For years, she would sale her products at Wangige Market as she explains, with a few home deliveries.

A friend would later tell her about Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO) programme.

Launched in 2013, the initiative is aimed at empowering women, youth and persons with disabilities economically, by providing them with more business opportunities with the government, including learning institutions.

AGPO is a government policy that reserves a minimum of 30 per cent of government procurement contracts for businesses owned by these groups, allowing them to tap into government tenders. 

“I was lucky to network on AGPO which exposed me to the programme's benefits and motivated me to formerly register my business and pursue government tenders,” she told the Star.

For Roy Nyagah, a 21-year youth from Nairobi, he became a director of his own company and secured two tenders for electrical appliance supplies, attributing this success to AGPO training. 

"So far so good I cant complain despite challenges on access to financing,” he said.

These are among those who are now fully involved in the government supply chain. However, thousands, if not millions of women, youths and persons with disability are missing out on these opportunities.

According to UN Women, a global champion for gender equality under the United Nations which is delivering programmes, policies and standards that uphold women's human rights, women-owned businesses in Kenya are tapping just 18.1 per cent of the AGPO opportunities despite the 30 per cent reservation by government.

The low uptake has been blamed on among others, limited access to capital and resources for women-owned businesses, lack of access to collateral, institutional bias and socio-cultural norms.

Complex technical requirements and bidding, registration processes, limited access to human capital where most women lag behind men in terms of business and managerial experience, have also been cited as barriers.

There is also lack of awareness about procurement opportunities, especially in rural areas, limited access to social capital-limited or no business networks, unpaid care and domestic work (women spend about 300-minutes per day on unpaid care burden), gender biases in decision-making and supply chain processes, resistance to change, lack of gender expertise, and rigid supplier selection processes.

Youths and persons living with disabilities are also missing out on the supply chain opportunities due to similar challenges, according to both government and private sector experts.

“One, women have challenges when it comes to access to financing for instance collateral in securing loans. They are mostly a shadow behind men but things are changing over time. We have identified the gap and that is what we want to address for instance with our Sultana initiative, a Shariah-compliant banking solution for women,” said Tego Wolasa, head of Islamic Banking at Absa Bank Kenya.

Millicent Okello, Women’s Economic Empowerment Specialist-Gender Responsive Procurement at UN Women, noted that those in charge of implementation of the 30 per cent tender programme also, at some point, lack the capacity to drive the initiave.

Even so, some public entities have in a big way opened up to these groups.

“Women should take up these opportunities. We are working with the National Treasury on  capacity building to increase adoption,” she told the Star.

According to a policy brief from Strathmore University, the challenges, often categorised as capacity, complexity, cost, communication and corruption (5Cs), prevent women from fully leveraging public procurement opportunities.

National Treasury principal supply chain management officer, Simon Okoth, notes that these groups are also missing out on technicalities such as using “wrong companies” to apply for tenders under AGPO.

“For instance you find someone using their husbands’ registered company. We are looking at women-owned companies, youths and persons living with disability who should be in the forefront seeking these opportunities,” Okoth said.

The government has been driving a capacity building in collaboration with the private sector, including underserved regions, to ensure an increase in tapping these opportunities.

 “We do training and capacity building to ensure expansion and growth for businesses owned by this target group. We call upon them to take up these opportunities,” said Florence Chemitai, deputy director, State Department for Gender and Affirmative Action.

The number of enterprises registered in the AGPO is slightly above 120,000, pointing to a need for more entities to tap the opportunities.

The shift to Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) will also create more opportunities, National Treasury principal supply chain management officer, Simon Okoth, said.

All suppliers, contractors and consultants doing business with public institutions must register on the e-GP system, which was opened from July 1, 2025, or risk being excluded from all government tenders and contracts.

The system is expected to have fully onboarded all government agencies by September 1.

“The system creates transparency and accountability in the tendering process,” said Okoth.

 Treasury is also keen to have state entities unbundle large-sied tenders to smaller sizes to make them affordable to women, youths and persons living with disability.

A recent study by Strathmore University Business School showed that women participating in AGPO have reported increased income and assets.

It showed that about 23 per cent of women were able to acquire higher incomes due to the ease of obtaining tenders with their AGPO certificates. 

women-led and -owned SMEs account for 31.4 per cent of all businesses and contribute about 20 per cent to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), yet they remain vastly underrepresented in both corporate and government supply chains (IFC).

This exclusion limits the country’s ability to tap into the full economic potential of women entrepreneurs, according to the World Bank entity.

According to the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), women owned only 22.9 per cent of MSMEs as of 2021, while men dominate ownership with 77.1 per cent of around 7.4 million MSMEs.

To support women entrepreneurs, the government implemented various initiatives, including the Women Enterprise Fund, Youth Enterprise Development Fund, AGPO) and Uwezo Fund, and the National Government Affirmative Action Fund.

These programmes aim to provide financial support, training and capacity building to help women and youth overcome business barriers.