4.3 percent of African women have access to credit

Arusha Only 4.3% of women entrepreneurs in Africa have access to loans, which is much lower than men's. This came after the visit to financial institutions in Kenya and Rwanda by technical experts from the East African Community (EAC) secretariat.

The delegation recently visited both countries to involve financial institutions in the implementation of the 50 million African Women's Networking Platform (50WAM) project.

"On average, only 4.3 percent of women entrepreneurs have access to financial services such as loans in Africa," said project coordinator Wilson Muyenzi.

Mary Makoffu, EAC's director of social services, said the project aimed to help women access funding like men, but in this case via an online platform. "Women are the pillars of our fragile economies and must be supported in the interest of society as a whole," she said.

The EAC leader regretted that many women on the continent are still lagging behind in access to financial services such as loans and bank accounts.

During her stay in Kenya, Verity Mganga, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Gender Equality, advocated for the full support of women in this endeavor, noting that they were still in the back row. "We need to be aware of the ability of our financial institutions to promote financial inclusion," she said. In Rwanda, the project has been hailed as complementing the efforts already made to engage women in income-generating activities in the fight against unemployment.

Rwanda, one of Africa's fastest-growing economies, is engaged in a plan to create 1.5 million jobs by 2024 , half of which is for women and girls.

However, most of the targeted women lack the skills to fully exploit the opportunities offered by the 50MWS project.

"I urge project leaders to prioritize the empowerment of women entrepreneurs to empower them economically," said Jean Bosco Murangira, a senior official with the Ministry of Women's Empowerment.

He emphasized that the lack of capital and corporate mindset was one of the biggest challenges facing women entrepreneurs. 50MWS is a continent-wide online platform to support women entrepreneurs recently launched with the support of the African Development Bank (AfDB).

In this context, targeted women entrepreneurs across Africa, including the EAC bloc, would receive financial and non-financial information to enable them to develop their businesses.