ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - African women entrepreneurs are becoming more prominent in many African economies despite several specific constraints: limited access to land, credit, education and training. Against this background, ILO and AfDB intend to boost their cooperation in developing an integrated solution to support financing for growth-oriented micro and small and medium-sized enterprises owned by women in those countries.
A new ILO-AfDB report examines "good practices" and challenges in policy and programme support. It adopts an integrated approach to helping women entrepreneurs, including coordination, leadership, financing, training, business support, information sharing, networks and women entrepreneurs' associations and the legal environment.
According to the report, the ongoing sub-regional discussions on women entrepreneurs not only affect Ethiopia, Kenya, the United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda, but also the rest of the continent. It recommends linking access to finance to business support services. Based on the findings of the report for Kenya, the AfDB has approved a new project to provide loan guarantees, business training and strengthening of associations of women entrepreneurs. As a further response to the reports in the four countries, the ILO will give greater priority to women's entrepreneurship in Africa over the next two years.
The report also calls for special efforts at the national and regional levels to challenge existing cultural and social practices and to allow women entrepreneurs to participate in private sector development and employment creation activities by reviewing the legal frameworks.
The AfDB, which advocates small and medium-sized enterprise development and women's access to finance, and the ILO, which provides technical expertise through its Women's Entrepreneurship Development and Gender Equality (WEDGE) technical cooperation project, launched the report during an interactive workshop in Nairobi in November 2005.
Note 2 - Support for growth-oriented women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania: An overview report, International Labour Office, Geneva, and African Development Bank, Tunis, 2005. ISBN 92-2-117005-5.