At the age of 20, Christelle Kwizera founded her enterprise, Water Access Rwanda, a social enterprise providing access to water through innovative sustainable solutions at the intersection of people, planet and profits.
For the eight years she has been running and managing her firm, the young entrepreneur has observed how challenging entrepreneurship is for women, especially the youth.
"As I speak, I represent the experiences of women and young entrepreneurs, especially those working in technical fields. We have markets that we address often supporting governments to provide much needed services to populations like water and electricity, yet we face major barriers to our work that needs addressing,” Kwizera remarked during the 14th Meeting of the Advisory Board for Women, Peace and Security in the Great Lakes Region that took place last week.
The meeting that was held to discuss developments in the Great Lakes region, held a session dedicated to offering youth and representatives of the Regional Women Platform the opportunity to share their perspectives on women’s economic empowerment.
The poor representation of women in the formal economy should draw our attention.
"Women are active and important participants in the socio economic development of the Great Lakes Region.
Women are entrepreneurial, they have always been. However, the poor representation of women in the formal economy thus should draw our attention: not to women’s incapacity to participate in the economy, but in the fact that the formal economy is structured in a way that excludes women by amplifying existing systemic and cultural barriers,” Kwizera shares.
Women struggle to access capital for their businesses. We need to support moderately successful women, amplify their visibility to inspire the next generation, but to also change public perceptions. Funds must also commit to have a gender lens to their investing and fix quotas to ensure they are not perpetrating this bias, she notes.
Kwizera also observes how women are heavily under-represented in the supply chain, and that this has a direct relationship with the women participating in the formal economy.
"Women entrepreneurs are often on their own. Discouraged at home/society at times, but heavily discouraged by the biased markets they work in. That is why it is not surprising that women achieve larger market success, but fail when it comes to bigger single contracts. Setting minimums for women in the supply chain is critical.”
Kenneth Makelo Lusaka, President of the Forum of Parliaments of Member States of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, says peace and security can never be achieved if the socio-economic prosperity aspect is left out; remember inequality stirs discontent.
"The participation of women and youth in the economy benefits us all; when they participate in peace making and peacekeeping, we are safer and more secure and their participation in politics and decision-making leads to the prosperity of nations,” he shares.
He, therefore, says that the right of women to equal representation is a human right that should never be assumed or overlooked.
Lessons from Rwanda
In Rwanda, women are highlighted and encouraged on every front. Transparent data that takes gender into account is surfacing and showing where the gaps are.
All governments need to adopt similar forms of reporting, to look at women participation in programmes, especially those funded from public resources. When correct data emerged, banks found out their female clients paid back their loans better, yet received a low amount of loans, Kwizera shares.
Data puts a number on what might be seen as a speculation or unfounded complaint. Today the start-up world has much more to answer for the underfunding of women entrepreneurs, she notes.
"More inclusion can only mean good things for all of us. In our case in the water sector, having women leading the decision-making has led us as a company to discover that piped water can be possible in rural areas and offer convenience where before only access was being looked at. This led us to create the INUMA water mini-grids—financially sustainable water grids that deliver water piped into homes up to SDG6 Safely managed water access ladder,” Kwizera says.
Huang Xia, Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General for the Great Lakes Region, says this fourteenth meeting of the Advisory Board is of particular importance and offers an appropriate framework to gather the contribution of key partners in this regard.
"I would like to emphasise that particular attention has been placed on taking into account community leaders, civil society, including women’s organisations involved in the dynamics of women, peace and security issues,” he says.
"You will recall that the Heads of State and Government, on the occasion of the 9th high-level meeting of the Regional Monitoring Mechanism of the Framework Agreement, appreciated the role of women as well as that of young people and asked that initiatives in their regard are given the utmost attention. To this end, I welcome the efforts made by the women of the Framework Agreement Platform and the Advisory Council who, with the support of my office, are creating a strong momentum for the implementation of the Regional Strategy.
"This is manifested through concrete projects, including a women’s training seminar on mediation, organised with Femwise-Africa. This seminar was enriched by the participation of the institutions of Ombudsmen and female mediating leaders,” Xia says.
While progress has been made in developing policies, translating commitment and decisions into concrete actions has been challenging. Adopting measures that strengthen women and youth in entrepreneurship will hence render returns and rewards for advancement and also, the development for the entire region.