$61.8m approved for Africa businesswomen
The Governing Committee, Women
Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) has approved a funding allocation of
$61.8m for the African Development Bank’s (https://www.AfDB.org/en/)
Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) (https://bit.ly/2Q1fF1L)
program.
We-Fi (https://We-Fi.org/) is a
partnership among 14 donor governments, eight multilateral development banks,
and other public and private sector stakeholders established in October 2017
and hosted by the World Bank Group.
“This substantial support from
the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, We-Fi, will help us scale up our
actions and achieve greater results for women entrepreneurs across the
continent. Our ambition with AFAWA goes beyond regular assistance to women in
business,” Vanessa Moungar, AfDB director for gender, women and civil society
said about the announcement.
With the We-Fi funding, AFAWA
intends to improve access to finance for 40,000 women-owned/led small and
medium enterprises in 21 African countries, mainly in low-income and fragile
countries where women entrepreneurs face greater challenges in accessing
finance, markets, knowledge, and mentoring programs.
Specifically, the program’s
activities will be implemented in Botswana, Burundi, Chad, Comoros, Côte
d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania,
Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania,
Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The activities funded by We-Fi
will be aligned with AFAWA’s three-pronged approach to holistically addressing
the $42bn financing gap between women and male entrepreneurs.
The first AFAWA pillar aims to
increase access to finance for women through innovative and tailored financial
instruments, including guarantee mechanisms to back up women entrepreneurs.
In collaboration with strategic
partners, the second pillar focuses on providing capacity-building services to
women entrepreneurs, including access to mentoring and entrepreneurship
training courses. AFAWA also helps financial institutions address the specific
needs of women-owned/led businesses through tailored financial and
non-financial products.
The third pillar concentrates on
improving the business environment for women by engaging in policy dialogue
with central banks and other relevant authorities and stakeholders.
Lastly, the We-Fi funding will
reinforce initiatives of the Bank and partners, such as UN Women and CARE
International, in favor of women entrepreneurs in various sectors that are
frequently overlooked by traditional financiers, donors and governments.
These special initiatives include
Fashionomics Africa (http://www.FashionomicsAfrica.org/) and the African women
tech entrepreneurs program.
Comments
Post a Comment