Africa in general has made great strides in the past few years regarding women empowerment. There is increased participation of women in both the political and socio-economic scene. There are more women business owners, Presidents/Prime Ministers, CEOs, CFOs and other roles that were hitherto male associated. It’s encouraging that 18% of all businesses in Africa are women owned. Rwanda is a shining example in Africa that the progress towards gender equity and women empowerment is not a myth, but an achievable target. However, more still needs to be done in achieving gender equity globally and more so in Africa. Economic security is not a reality for all, more so women, who are less likely to be employed in the formal sector. In fact, they are more likely to dominate the informal sector’s low-income, labour-intensive jobs, which lack value addition or growth opportunities. Rwanda was aptly picked as the host for the 6th Women Deliver Conference that recently concluded in Kigali. It is the world’s largest conference on gender equity, health, rights and well-being of girls and women. The conference was happening on African soil for the first time and brought together stakeholders to break barriers, address challenges and identify opportunities to advance gender equity. Rwanda’s Vision 2050 has a target for Rwanda to become an upper middle-income country by 2035 and a high-income country by 2050 and it highlights Gender and Family Promotion as one of the cross-cutting areas. However, lack of access to capital is one of the biggest challenges that African women face, especially when the majority do not hold collateral assets such as land, which are usually in their husbands’ or fathers’ names. According to an EIB survey, about 75% of women owned/ led businesses in Africa have no access to reliable growth finance capital. The European Investment Bank is cognizant of the fact that limited access to credit is a huge factor as to why we have not tackled the structural barriers underpinning the global gender digital divide and digital transition that is both fair and inclusive. Achieving gender equity in Africa should not be limited to only women agitating for change. They need allies to support them and that is where organisations that provide funding come in to address the credit gap that is essential in fostering entrepreneurship. Rwanda has identified that increasing opportunities to access and utilize formal financial schemes; strengthening women's position in the labour market especially in the private sector as well ensuring improvement of technical skills can accelerate women engagement in the formal sector and leverage their contribution to the national economic and social transformation. At the EIB, our strategy towards advancing gender equity in Africa, and globally, has always been to Protect the rights of girls and women, back projects with high Impact on gender equality, and to Invest in women. Promotion of gender equity is embedded in the business model – covering lending and advisory services. The European Investment Bank is the largest multilateral financial institution in the world. Since 2019, it has mobilised over 2 billion euros towards gender responsive financing in Africa through its SheInvest programme. It is aimed at boosting gender equality and female economic empowerment because research confirms that women entrepreneurs often find themselves as part of the “missing middle”, often perceived to be too small or too risky to receive traditional sources of commercial financing. EIB has pledged a further 2 billion euros for future funding in Africa, Latin America and Asia under the programme. The Bank has taken various approaches to ensuring credit is accessible and benefits women most, including providing private equity funding to start ups, providing funds to local financial partners such as retail banks or microfinance institutions to loan to women, as well as providing loan guarantees to de-risk women borrowers who may not have traditional forms of collateral to access credit. The bank requires that a minimum of 30% of all its financing advanced to local banks for on-lending must be dedicated to SMEs that are women-owned/ women-led or have the majority of employees as women. Another good example is that in 2022 under the African Women Rising Initiative, the EIB and the Development Bank of Rwanda signed a co-operation agreement to enable BRD increase access to finance for women and develop targeted advisory services for women entrepreneurs. All this is aimed at, among other things, closing the gender gap in businesses; promoting policy and regulatory reform, ensuring that economic transformation benefits all and supporting the provision of public and private services through gender-responsive channels, technologies and services that will enhance women and girls’ inclusion and participation in the society. We look forward to working with more partners to realize Gender Equity sooner. The author is the Vice President of the European Investment Bank with oversight of the Eastern Africa region as well as gender-related financing.
