The African Development Bank (AfDB) has taken a significant step towards gender equality and economic empowerment by granting $950,000 from its Gender Equality Trust Fund. The grant aims to strengthen women-led enterprises in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger through the Africa Small and Medium Enterprise Business Linkages Program.
Building upon a previous $3.9 million financing grant from the Bank's Transition Support Facility, this funding will have a substantial impact by empowering 1,400 women entrepreneurs. The program's primary goals are to enhance the economic resilience of the region, foster social cohesion, and provide vital support to women-led enterprises.
The Gender Equality Trust Fund plays a vital role in supporting the AfDB's Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) program. AFAWA aims to bridge the significant $42 billion gender financing gap for women-led African enterprises by promoting gender-transformative lending and non-lending operations.
Malado Kaba, the Bank's Director for Gender, Women, and Civil Society, is excited about the expanded reach of the program, which benefits over a thousand women entrepreneurs across the Sahel region. Kaba emphasizes the importance of including women in economic development and highlights how the program's comprehensive business-related training, coaching, and increased access to finance will contribute to this objective.
Recognizing the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in the Sahel region, such as limited access to finance, markets, and business development services, the Africa Small and Medium Enterprise Business Linkages Program aims to address these obstacles. The program will equip women entrepreneurs with the necessary tools and resources for growth. Furthermore, it seeks to boost productivity, create employment opportunities, and offer capacity-building initiatives in entrepreneurship, core business functions, and management training, with a special focus on empowering young women and men.
To ensure the program's success, the AfDB's Gender, Women, and Civil Society Department conducted three comprehensive studies and collaborated with chambers of commerce in the Sahel region to identify women-led businesses. Additionally, the bank actively supports national statistics offices in developing robust and gender-responsive data, enabling accurate measurement of the program's impact.
The G5 Sahel Union of Chambers of Commerce will administer the program in collaboration with financial institutions and intermediaries, facilitating direct access to finance for local small and medium enterprises and thereby fostering their growth and development.
The Africa Small and Medium Enterprise Business Linkages Program perfectly aligns with the African Development Bank's 2021–2024 Private Sector Development Strategy, its 2021–2025 Gender Strategy, and the 2022–2026 strategy for addressing fragility and building resilience in Africa. By empowering women-led enterprises, this program not only drives economic growth but also advances gender equality, creates sustainable change, and paves the way for a brighter future in the Sahel region.
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