44% of businesses are owned by women - 2nd Deputy BoG Governor
First+ initiative will ensure equitable access to funding - Addo Awadzi
Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Elsie Addo Awadzi, has bemoaned the huge disparity that exists between men and women in the areas of access to funding for businesses.
According to Awadzi, even though female entrepreneurs dominate Ghana’s private sector, data available shows that when it comes to access to finance for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) men are 8 percent more likely to get funds than women, as of 2017.
The second deputy governor, who made these remarks at the Ghana Microfinance Institutions Network (GHAMFIN) and CapPlus FIRST + Gender Finance Workshop, added that the COVID-19 pandemic might have even worsened the gender gap in access to finance.
“Access to finance for our MSMEs remains a perennial challenge and most surveys of our business environment surveys confirm this. Women-owned MSMEs face an even higher bar to accessing finance. As of 2017, the World Bank’s Findex Report suggested that there was an 8 percent gender gap in access to finance in Ghana, and an average of 9 percent for Africa and the rest of the developing world."
“Given that the adverse socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic were felt disproportionately by women with many of their businesses barely surviving, it is only fair to imagine that the gender gap in access to finance may have widened even further,” she said.
Awadzi, therefore, commended the First + initiative which will be working with a number of our commercial banks, NBFIs, and rural and community banks, to scale up finance for micro, small, and medium enterprises with a special focus on increasing women entrepreneurs.
She added that aside from access to finance there are other issues affecting women entrepreneurs including the access to market MSMEs also well as women’s representation on boards to help understand the needs of MSMEs owned by women, that need to be addressed.
“Bank of Ghana will continue to help promote access to an inclusive financial system as by extension broad-based macroeconomic growth through its policy, regulatory, and supervisory tools,” she added.
Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Elsie Addo Awadzi