This is what it will take to grow women-owned enterprises

The empowerment of women has three core dimensions to it — economic, political and social empowerment.

Economic empowerment of women is arguably central to achieving the latter two. It, therefore, stands to reason that increasing women’s access to economic opportunities by providing them with affordable credit will over time limit and eventually eliminate gender inequalities. Critical to achieving this is supporting women-owned enterprises financially.

One of the most quoted hindrances to the growth of women-owned enterprises is the high cost of credit — the unavailability of attractive medium and long-term financing options. Poor access to markets is another of the challenges stagnating growth.

If these two issues are tackled, the problem of women’s economic empowerment will have been solved midway.

Household income

Credit affordability is heavily reliant on access to credit information. Information about different modes of credit is key to accessing affordable finance for female entrepreneurs.

In Islamic finance, women in business can get financing by placing their chattels, such as jewellery, as collateral in exchange for a financing facility, without necessarily having ownership of real estate.

Funding women-owned enterprises will reduce earning disparities and increase household income.

Recently, Gulf African Bank partnered with Safaricom to bring together female entrepreneurs under the bank’s Women Banking programme for a networking summit.

The platform brought to the fore barriers faced by women entrepreneurs in the process of starting and growing enterprises, and approaches that can be employed to surmount them.

A key concern among these entrepreneurs was enterprise financing and sustainability. From the discussions, it was clear that if a female entrepreneur makes it beyond the micro-enterprise threshold, she is able to run her business successfully, especially if she has a good financial partner.

Female entrepreneurs characteristically move on to register their business, participate more actively in addressing SME growth constraints based on their experiences, easily get market opportunities and are keen to grow themselves as authorities in their areas of business expertise.

Research has shown that reliance on savings-dependent growth stalls the development of an enterprise.

While the initiatives it has put in place to empower women economically are commendable, the Government should seek to further strengthen its gender-responsive policies to ensure women respond more to available funding opportunities.

Delivering them through financial institutions, especially niche-serving ones, will increase reach, uptake and boost monitoring mechanisms for female fund borrowers. This is important since different entrepreneurs will want their financial facilities structured differently.

The writer is CEO, Gulf African Bank. bizbeat@standardmedia.co.ke