AfDB gets $61.8m to drive initiative for women entrepreneurs

The Governing Committee of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) has approved a funding allocation of $61.8 million (about N22.248 billion) for the African Development Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) programme.

AfDB’s Director for Gender, Women and Civil Society, Vanessa Moungar in a statement yesterday said, “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.”

We-Fi 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.

With the We-Fi funding, AFAWA intends to improve access to finance for 40,000 womenowned/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 programmes.

About 21 countries including Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and other African countries will benefit from the programme as it helps to holistically address the $42 billion financing gap between women and male entrepreneurs.

AfDB in the statement said, AFAWA aims to increase access to finance for women through innovative and tailored financial instruments; provide capacity-building services to women entrepreneurs, and to help financial institutions address the specific needs of women-owned/ led businesses through tailored products.