Sahel Region: African Development Bank Provides Nearly $1 Million in Gender-Based Grants to Increase Opportunities for Women-Led Businesses | African Development Bank

The African Development Bank’s Gender Equality Trust Fund will provide a $950,000 grant to the Africa Small and Medium Enterprise Business Linkages Program in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

The grant, which will complement a previous $3.9 million funding grant from the Bank’s Transition Support Facility, is expected to support 1,400 women-led businesses and contribute to the region’s economic resilience and social cohesion.

The Gender Equality Trust Fund supports the delivery and scaling of the bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa, or AFAWA, program. AFAWA aims to close the $42 billion gender funding gap for women-led African businesses by promoting gender transformative lending and non-lending.

“We are excited to expand the impact of the program, which will reach more than 1,000 women entrepreneurs in the Sahel region,” said Malado Kaba, the Bank’s director for Gender, Women and Social Society. “We believe that a key to building resilient African societies is the inclusion of women in economic development. The programme’s broad range of business-related training and coaching will – in addition to increasing access to finance – go a long way towards achieving that goal,” she added.

Women entrepreneurs in the Sahel region face significant barriers to accessing finance, markets and business development services. The Africa Small and Medium Enterprise Business Linkages Program will provide women entrepreneurs with the tools and resources they need to overcome these barriers and grow their businesses. It will also help to increase productivity and employment opportunities, especially for young women and men, including by offering capacity building in entrepreneurship, core business functions and management training.

The bank’s Gender, Women and Society division conducted three surveys and consulted with Sahel region chambers of commerce to identify women-led companies willing to participate in the program. The bank also supports national statistical offices to build more robust, gender-sensitive data to measure the impact of the program.

The G5 Sahel Union of Chambers of Commerce will manage the program in partnership with financial institutions and intermediaries to directly support access to finance for local, small and medium-sized enterprises.

The Africa Small and Medium Enterprise Business Linkages Program aligns with the African Development Bank’s 2021-2024 Private Sector Development Strategy, 2021-2025 Gender Strategy and 2022-2026 Strategy for Addressing Vulnerability and Building Resilience in Africa.

The Board of Directors of the Bank Group approved the grant on 23 March 2023.