Above the Odds

Sarah Kitakule brings real field credibility to this documentation of Ugandan women entrepreneurs — she has worked with the UN, IFC, and World Bank, and it shows in the depth of analysis. The book traces roughly a decade of how women navigated trade liberalization, drought, disease, and structural barriers to build businesses, weaving individual stories into a larger macroeconomic picture. That grounding in actual field experience is the strongest argument for picking it up. The honest caveats: Uganda's economic landscape has shifted considerably since 2011, the academic framing limits its appeal beyond researchers and policy professionals, and mainstream critical coverage is thin. For development economists or anyone studying African women's economic agency, this fills a genuine gap.