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We started tackling work floor discrimination faced by women living with HIV not at the flower farms where they worked, but at the schools nearby.

Hivos is excited to support local governments and civil society actors  in their local open contracting initiatives and related policies at the local level. 

We’re launching set of learning circles in collaboration with Open Contracting Partnership in an effort to grow and strengthen our community of practice. These intensive online discussions will focus on key themes for OC implementation.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world in a way that seemed unimaginable only weeks ago. While governments struggle to keep their health systems afloat, stocks dwindle and prices of medical equipment surge. In response, the call for transparency and accountability in health procurement is growing.

In this interview Esther Nekambi, Director of the Uganda Flower Exporter Association (UFEA), sheds some light on the challenges women workers face and how an organization like UFEA can help.

Examining the gendered needs and rights of employees working in the flower farms has never been timelier. While women account for 70 to 80 percent of workers in the highly lucrative horticulture sector, they are often in seasonal employment or taking on board as casual laborers. Since they are encumbered by the reproductive and care roles, flower farms seems to prefer men to women when it comes to permanent employment.

Ten leading flower farms have been using the CSR Africa Portal in the past two years to help them boost their social performance.

While an audit inspection in a flower farm is supposed to reflect both strength and weaknesses of the systems of the flower farms, the reality is different. Interviews with workers in these flower farms reveal that the management of the farms have made audits pointless. They said the audits have been turned in routine exercises, whose impact is not being felt by the workers.