Below you will find two snippets from recent news in Africa relating to African women in business. I chose these two articles because I think they are a model for what collaboration between government and women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in general should be all about.
International Finance Corporation (Washington, DC) by way of AllAfrica writes:
Kampala
With help from IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, the dfcu Group launched today its Women in Business program for Ugandan women entrepreneurs, whereby dfcu will extend financing to women entrepreneurs coupled with business skills training. IFC’s assistance will be through its Gender Entrepreneurship Markets initiative.
In October 2006, IFC provided dfcu with a $6 million loan, $2 million of which was earmarked for the Women in Business program. By combining access to finance and professional training, IFC and dfcu expect to increase women entrepreneurs’ contribution to Uganda’s economy.
This is the type of practical initiative that I think will over time help transform Africa's small business sector's into powerhouses. The other positive by-product from such initiatives is that in addition to empowering women to more directly influence their local economies, greater reign over local business efforts might also translate into greater say-so in their own respective societies.
In other recent news, this time from Rwanda, several womens associations in conjunction with the Rwanda Private Sector federation put on a trade fair to showcase various products of women across the country.
Eleneus Akanga writes:
"...We organized the exhibition to be able to show visiting
delegates the works of the Rwandan woman. We hope the trade fair can go a long
way in opening the abundant items to a wider market," said Janet Nkubana, who
took the two ladies on a guided tour of the stalls.Summit steering committee chairperson, Senator Aloysia
Inyumba, said the exhibition was a brainchild of a special committee for arts
and special exhibition which, together with the Rwanda Private Sector Federation
(RPSF), mobilized women around the country to exhibit some of their artistic
work.Exhibitors were also given the opportunity to directly sell some of
their items to visiting delegates..."Source: The New Times
What I hope to do before going into the closing installments of the African Women In Business series are to possibly show you some developments taking place in a few other parts of Africa as it pertains to women owned business. Stay tuned for the conclusion of the African Women In Business series as we bring you entrepreneur profiles, business ideas, and then close the series with a review of Africa women blogosphere.
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Tags: African Women, women in business, female business owners in Africa
4 comments:
excellent idea - will include it in this weeks pambazuka blog review which can be found here:
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/
Sokari:
I am very happy about this series and am glad that you stopped by. My wife's mother is someone that I think about a lot whenever my mind is on this series. Particularly, when it comes to certain laws in some of Africa's countries that make it doing business in Africa harder for women than for men.
Honestly, this was something that I did not learn about until your comment here a few weeks ago. I also hope that this dialogue can continue between The Benin Epilogue, you, and other women blogging about Africa.
Thank you for helping to open my eyes wider. You are doing a really wonderful job at helping the world hear news from the African woman's point of view.
Looking forward to checking out pambazuka.
It's really nice to see Global South governments helping women entrepreneurs. I really hope this helps the economy there like it has here.
This is great news to see that the government is helping women entrepreneurs to build up businesses!
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