Leveraging Capital to Shift Gender Norms: Catalysing Women’s Empowerment in Kenya’s Blue Economy
Amina Muhamed Bakari, a participant in AECF’s Investing in Women program, was able to purchase a fishing boat through the project’s support. (Photo: AECF)
About
Studies have shown that Africa has the highest rate of women’s entrepreneurship, with one in four businesses founded or led by women. From bustling market stalls to thriving agricultural ventures, women are the vibrant backbone of commerce in every corner of the continent. Yet, despite their undeniable presence and hard work, most women entrepreneurs remain confined to the informal sector and small-scale enterprises, earning incomes of just $3 to $10 per day, barely enough to rise above the poverty line. Deep-rooted economic challenges and entrenched social barriers continue to stifle their potential, keeping many talented women from scaling their businesses and transforming their communities.
At both the household and community levels, deeply ingrained gender norms dictate what women are allowed to own, earn and decide, confining them to prescribed roles that limit their potential. In Kenya, such norms often surface in widely accepted sayings like “men are better leaders than women,” “politics is for men,” “a man is the head of the household,” or “a man must be the provider.” These powerful beliefs which are especially entrenched in rural areas, create barriers that hold women back from fully participating in economic, social, and political life, despite their talents and ambitions.
In the blue economy sector for example, an analysis by the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) revealed that gendered norms consistently favor men while creating significant barriers for women’s access to opportunities. These norms include: women not being allowed to touch fishing boats during their “special days”, not being included in property inheritance and not being allowed to take up public leadership positions when their spouses are present. Left unchecked, these biased norms have led to incidences of gender-based violence, under representation of women in leadership and decision making, increased burden of care among women and significant gender gaps in access to finance.
Type of actor
Development institution
(Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund - AECF)
Investment type
Grant
Operates from
Kenya, South Sudan, Benin, Burkina Faso and Nigeria
Sectors
Blue Economy, Agriculture
Key Partners
Launched in 2021 and supported by Global Affairs Canada (GAC), the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund’s flagship Investing in Women programme is dedicated to empowering women and boosting rural household incomes by tackling the deep-rooted financial and social barriers that restrict their full participation in agricultural value chains.
Approach
In Kenya, GAC has dedicated a total of 9.7 million CAD for the Investing in Women in the Blue Economy in Kenya (IIW-BEK) initiative, to catalyse the blue economy and contribute to the economic empowerment of women owned and led enterprises, along key supply chains where women are discriminated against in the sector.
Its transformative factor is its focus on reducing systemic gender inequalities that hinder women’s effective economic participation in the blue economy as a key outcome. The programme takes a collaborative approach with gender advocacy organisations and financial institutions, to holistically address harmful and gendered social norms and financial access barriers. It is implemented in five countries which are: Kenya, South Sudan, Benin, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. Below, are two stories from the programme that demonstrate the pathway to shifting gender norms and empowering women through investment.
Impact
Mama Amina, from Pate Island in Lamu East Subcounty along Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, runs a thriving fishing and fish supply business. Denied the opportunity to pursue education beyond primary school because her parents believed girls did not need schooling, she turned to fishing - the only viable livelihood available near the ocean. When she learned about the IIW-BEK program, her business was selected as one of the benefiting enterprises. The program awarded her a grant of USD 27,000, along with technical assistance to grow her business. With this support, she registered her enterprise, complied with government regulations and taxes, established a business premise, purchased her own fishing boat, and employed local fishermen.
“The fishermen who used to sell fish to me are now my employees,” she proudly says.
The grant not only transformed her business but also how society perceived her. Eight months later, she applied for a government tender to supply boats to fishing groups and won. After delivering on the contract, she earned recognition as a key leader and decision-maker in the fisheries sector and was recently appointed to the executive committee of her local Beach Management Unit as the Vice Chair.
She now leads a membership of 300 fisherfolk and has gained confidence, power and a voice to lead in the public arena. Her ambition is to be elected as a Member of the County Assembly (MCA), where she can champion gender equality and prioritise entrepreneurship needs. Aware that post-secondary education is essential for this level of leadership, she has enrolled in adult education and is preparing to sit for her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education in November 2026.
Jacinta, from the Lake Victoria region in Homabay County, Kenya, owns Jecinter Enterprises, a business that buys and sells omena (known locally as dagaa). Although she had been in the business for many years, she struggled to make substantive progress.
Like other women in her community, she was bound by long-standing gender-based restrictions in the fisheries sector. Women were not allowed to go near a boat, touch it, or engage with fishermen as they prepared to go out to sea as this would bring a bad omen. Fishing was considered a man’s preserve, while women were expected to remain on shore, often limited to low-paid roles such as cleaning, drying, or selling fish. It was also against the norm for a married woman to be elected to key leadership positions in fisheries-related associations, leadership was expected to go to her husband as long as he was alive and active in the community.
A place of her own - Jacinta Atieno’s Jecinter Enterprises storefront. (Photo: AECF)
The norms limited the growth of Jacinta’s business in many ways including frequent losses as the prices were set by the fishermen through the Beach Management Unit (BMU) leadership.
After successfully applying for a grant through the IIW BEK program, Jacinta grew her business. She installed a solar-powered drying machine that enabled her to reduce post-harvest losses, increased her capacity to purchase more omena and tripled employment opportunities.
These changes have brought a tremendous shift in decision-making and control over market dynamics in her community. Jacinta has moved from being a price taker to a price setter, empowering other women in the process. With her solar dryer and expanded outlets, she can now purchase and process larger quantities of omena daily, providing fishermen with a consistent and reliable market for their entire catch.
The way fishermen speak to women traders has also changed.
Today, they ask, “What will be the price of the omena today?” — a stark contrast to the past when fishermen dictated the price and women were told to take it or leave it. Women often accepted the price, even when it meant making losses, because they desperately needed the omena to keep their businesses running and their market customers supplied.
Further, in the recent BMU elections, Jacinta has been elected as the chairperson for traders. Her aspiration is to influence the review of the BMU By-laws to ensure that they are also responsive to women’s contexts.
Key Takeaways
The IIW-BEK initiative has demonstrated how capital can be leveraged to increase women’s incomes and agency within the sector, with 56% of the investees reporting up to a 50% increase in incomes. As seen in the case studies above, the impact goes even deeper as women have gained leadership and decision-making power, broken dependency cycles, and created momentum for intergenerational progress.
Hence, a key lesson from us at AECF is that achieving transformative change for women requires the provision of catalytic capital and challenging restrictive norms around their agency and decision-making.
