Heads of state, ministers, leaders of multilateral development banks, private sector executives, women entrepreneurs have met in Cote d’Ivoire to discuss concrete ways to strengthen support for women-led small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in West Africa.
The meeting facilitated by the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) attracted more than 400 public and private sector leaders from West Africa and other regions.
The summited was supported by the African Development Bank (AfDB) , the Islamic Development Bank and the World Bank Group.
The Summit concluded with a joint Call to Action, urging wide-ranging public policy reforms and private sector actions to help women entrepreneurs overcome persistent barriers, both financial and non-financial.
“Women constitute the majority of Africa’s self-employed population and play a key economic role, with significant benefits for their families, communities, and countries,” Summit leaders noted.
Acknowledging the challenge of full economic participation, they stressed that “Women entrepreneurs also face other barriers that prevent them from accessing finance, markets, technology, mentoring, and capacity-building support. This limits the potential of women entrepreneurs and impedes economic growth and poverty reduction across Africa.”
Due to these constraints, female entrepreneurs in the region consistently lag men on several key indicators of business performance.
A recent World Bank study found that
monthly profits and sales from female-owned firms in the region were on
average 34 percent and 38 percent lower, respectively, than those of
male-owned firms.
Summit leaders called on governments to undertake policy and legal reforms to increase women entrepreneurs’ access to financial services, government contracts, and the basic infrastructure of the digital economy.
They also highlighted the urgent need to
remove labor and mobility restrictions for women and to ensure their
equal rights to property.
