GASABO – Women play a leading role in the transformation of societies and eradication of poverty, Pélagie Mukayiranga, the finance director in the Ministry of Agriculture, has said.

Mukayiranga, who is also the head of Gasabo Women’s Group, made the observation during a one-day training seminar at Remera, Kigali, early this week. She urged Gasabo women to form self-help associations in order to have access to the women’s guarantee fund.

"Women comprise the biggest majority in our country and they must stand up and fight poverty,” Mukayiranga said. She said the advantage of forming co-operatives was that loans could be accessed easily as opposed to operating individually.

She stressed that if women could finance 50 percent of their projects, the guarantee fund could provide the remaining fifty percent of the amount requested to use in the project.

Mukayiranga said that the reason the Government had sunk money in the fund was to help women who have no guarantee to present to banks easily access loans.

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