The Gender, Women and Civil Society Department of the African Development Bank Group will host a virtual webinar in partnership with the African Guarantee Fund on Monday, 8 March 2021, called “I AM #AFAWA”.
This virtual event, organized on International Women’s Day, marks the start of implementation of the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) Guarantee for Growth (G4G) program. The programme will showcase women-owned small medium enterprises’ (SMEs) beneficiaries, as well as their supporting financial institutions.
The women entrepreneurs will share their journeys to accessing finance under the AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program and financial institutions will shed light on the innovative ways to addressing the financial and non-financial needs of women-owned SMEs on the continent.
Women entrepreneurs contribute significantly to economic development and financial integration on the continent by creating jobs. However, they continue to have difficulty in accessing loans, partly due to their inability to provide immovable collateral, and the roadblock of existing land and property rights laws.
Through the AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program, the Bank aims to unlock up to $3 billion of financing for Women SMEs by de-risking them and enhancing financial institutions' appetite to lend to women.
The 2-hour panel session themed “Women Entrepreneurs: Key Drivers of Economic Growth” will provide a platform for women entrepreneurs, women-led business support organizations, financial institutions and government stakeholders to address obstacles to accessing finance and growing sustainably.
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