Driving economic empowerment for women in Africa
African Development Bank (AfDB) approves a new Gender Equality Trust Fund (GETF) to drive gender equality and women empowerment across the continent.
After receiving funding from multiple donors, the Gender Equality Trust Fund (GETF) — established by the African Development Bank (AfDB) — will support the delivery and scale-up of the Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) programme, as well as promoting gender transformative lending and non-lending operations. The GETF fund will be initially established for a 10 year period.
Striving to bridge the US$42bn financing gap women are facing in Africa, the AFAWA is the AfDB’s flagship pan-African initiative. Via the AFWA the bank is working to spearhead a major push to unlock the capacity for women entrepreneurs and their economic participation, in order to achieve maximum development impact within the region.
“It’s a great day for us as a Bank. It is a great day for the continent and the women of Africa as this facility provides innovative ways to tackle the access to finance challenges for African women business owners,” said African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina.
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In addition to the GETF, the AfDB board of directors approved a risk sharing mechanism to de-risk women-empowered businesses, enhance their banking profiles and support their growth as an entrepreneur.
Those who invested in the GETF include multiple European governments from France, Netherlands and the United Kingdom (UK).
Describing the approval of the GETF, Vanessa Moungar, Bank Director, Gender, Women and Civil Society, commented that it is “the largest effort ever to bridge the gap in access to finance for women in Africa’s history,” adding that the find and risk sharing mechanism would prioritise women’s economic empowerment.
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