UK aid boosts support for African women entrepreneurs to expand businesses into global markets.
The UK is boosting support to female entrepreneurs in Africa, helping them overcome barriers to starting businesses and connecting them to global markets, International Development Secretary Alok Sharma announced.
Africa has the highest concentration of female entrepreneurs, accounting for almost a third of all businesses on the continent.
Despite this, their contributions to the economy remains low. This is because many women face barriers to growing their businesses, such as obtaining investment from banks, with almost two-thirds of women in Sub-Sahara Africa without bank accounts.
Through scaling up the successful SheTrades programme, the UK will empower women in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya to grow their businesses and start trading internationally.
The announcement will:
- Support female entrepreneurs to secure more investment through specialist business training, creating up to 3000 more jobs and helping to reduce inequality in the workplace;
- Create potential investment and development partnerships for women entrepreneurs;
- Work with governments in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya to develop tailored gender-inclusive trade policies. Supporting women-owned businesses to participate in global trade helps drive economic growth and reduce poverty.
Enabling women to play an equal role in the economy is essential to sustained economic growth and will help lift millions out of poverty. Creating more opportunities for women to work could add $12 trillion (or 11 percent) to the value of the global economy by 2025 and the McKinsey Global Institute report that reducing gender inequality will boost African economies by $316 billion over the coming years.
The UK-Africa Investment Summit will highlight the visibility of businesses run by women shaping the economies of African nations today.
Original source: DFID
Published on 16 January 2019
