The Development Bank Ghana (DBG) has reiterated its dedication to fostering the advancement of women entrepreneurs in the nation.
During the Investment Climate Reform (ICR) Facility – Development Bank Ghana Stakeholder Workshop, the bank’s Deputy Chief Executive, Michael Mensah-Baah, unveiled DBG’s initiative to empower 500 women-led enterprises.
These businesses are set to benefit from the GH₵1 billion fund, which DBG and its partners aim to deploy to support Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
Mensah-Baah highlighted DBG’s collaboration with pertinent stakeholders and likeminded financial institutions to realize this objective within the next three to five years.
“DBG is a wholesale lending institution, that is, we lend to other financial institutions so we need to have partners who are like-minded like us, who will work with us, and who share this same ambition of being able to support women-led businesses,” he said on Wednesday.
This initiative is a direct response to the significant challenge of limited access to financial assistance for women.
During discussions with the media at the event, Mr. Mensah-Baah recognized the existing gap in financial access. Despite women owning 50 percent of businesses in Ghana, only 10 percent of these businesses have access to funding.
He emphasized that the workshop aimed to identify and overcome the obstacles hindering women entrepreneurs from accessing the financial support they need.
“The issue we have discovered is that women who are available to receive this funding still struggle to get funding and we needed to have this workshop to understand some of the barriers that prevent them from accessing the funding.
“This is because even though the funding is available and the women are unable to access it, we won’t achieve our ambition of providing long-term capital for these women,” he stated.
According to him, the bank will not only provide financial support but will also offer capacity-building and technical assistance to empower women-led businesses.
He believed this technical training would support women-led businesses, facilitate their growth, and transform their businesses from micro-enterprises into large corporate entities in Ghana.
Emina Abrahamsdotter of the GFA Consulting Group, on her part encouraged collaboration between stakeholders to improve women’s access to finance in the country.
She also noted that staff of DBG and 15 other financial institutions will be trained on gender equality, gender mainstreaming and women’s financial empowerment.
Taking her turn, the Team Lead of Women Banking of Access Bank Ghana, Charity Ahadzie highlighted the numerous challenges faced by women entrepreneurs including lack of access to networking opportunities, information and finance.
She therefore noted that educating and training these women is a crucial form of empowerment to assist them grow their various businesses.
Madam Ahadzie therefore noted that her outfit which is a PFI-partner of DBG readily undertakes capacity building events to ensure that “whatever they are learning they will be able to plow it back into their businesses that way when you lend to them their businesses will grow and they will be able to repay.”