A majority of women entrepreneurs in Africa still engage in
small-scale farming and petty businesses, as they continue to battle
customs and traditions that prohibit them from owning assets, especially
land, and therefore lack collateral to access credit.
Many
of them lack financial literacy due to low levels or lack of education.
Even where they can get financing, there is a growing number of
women-led medium-sized businesses that face bottlenecks when trying to
expand.
In Tanzania, for example, even with the growth
in financial inclusion — from 15 per cent in 2009 to 58 per cent in
2013, which is huge — women still face the challenges of access to
finance and markets.
Irene Mlola, operations director
at Financial Sector Deepening Tanzania, speaking at the recent Women
Advancing Africa (WAA) annual conference in Dar es Salaam, said the two
biggest obstacles cited in accessing finance are collateral requirements
and prohibitive interest rates.
A survey by the Graca
Machel Trust and the Women in Finance Network in 2016 to determine the
growth barriers to women entrepreneurs in East Africa found that out of
443 respondents who had applied for a loan, just over a quarter of them
succeeded.
Financial inclusion
To
push for more financial inclusion, Maureen Kwilasa, a financial
inclusion advisor with Southern Africa Care asked African governments to
commit to help halve the gender gap in accessing finances by 2021.
The meeting asked the Graca Machel Trust to create a gender-sensitive pan-African co-operative investment fund modelled around the South African Stockvels. Stokvels are clubs of twelve or more people serving as rotating credit unions or saving scheme, where members contribute fixed sums of money to a central fund on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis.
They also called for a disruptive platform where finacnail technology will ensure market access and linkages to allow women entrepreneurs to market their products on the continent. The Trust will work with government and financial stakeholders to promote financial literacy.
Tanzania’s Vice-President Samia Suluhu praised WAA as a platform to identify solutions and pitch business ideas. “That will ensure that everyone lives in dignity and is not left by the development bandwagon,” she said.
The meeting asked the Graca Machel Trust to create a gender-sensitive pan-African co-operative investment fund modelled around the South African Stockvels. Stokvels are clubs of twelve or more people serving as rotating credit unions or saving scheme, where members contribute fixed sums of money to a central fund on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis.
They also called for a disruptive platform where finacnail technology will ensure market access and linkages to allow women entrepreneurs to market their products on the continent. The Trust will work with government and financial stakeholders to promote financial literacy.
Tanzania’s Vice-President Samia Suluhu praised WAA as a platform to identify solutions and pitch business ideas. “That will ensure that everyone lives in dignity and is not left by the development bandwagon,” she said.
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