The Deutsche Gesellschaft Fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in partnership with the European Union, Thursday, launched the Women Entrepreneurship for Africa (WE4A) project in Accra, to prepare Sub-Saharan African women entrepreneurs for global markets.

The theme for the launch is, “Capitalizing on the Full Potential of Women Entrepreneurs for Employment Creation”.

The programme being developed with the support of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), and German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), is being implemented by the GIZ GmbH and the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF).

It would train business women, create market avenues for them on the globally and give them funding to build or develop their businesses.

The project which would initially benefit Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, and Tanzania aims to increase economic inclusion and empowerment of women and create more decent jobs in African countries.

Madam Regina Barbosa Bauerochse, the Country Director, GIZ, said women economic empowerment remained a very important issue for Africa, especially as women were more economically active in Africa than anywhere else in the world, according to the ILO World Employment and Social Outlook Report (2019).

She urged African countries not to overlook the great potential of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), as they played a key role in the economic and social development process and contributed to a substantial proportion of total employment.

Even though women operated most MSMEs in Africa which was the backbone of the economy, she said, access to finance was a major constraint for them, hence the development of the project to support and provide them with avenues for growth.

Mr Gideon Mankralo, a Technical Advisor of the WE4A project, GIZ, said the project had been divided into three components - the Entrepreneurship training and seed capital, where 2,420 female entrepreneurs from across Sub-Saharan Africa would be enrolled in the TEF programme, which included online training, mentoring and networking opportunities and a seed capital of $5,000.

Based on the GIZ Programme Employment and Skills for Africa's (E4D) existing networks of African and European companies and industry stakeholders, female-led medium and small scale enterprises who are alumni of the TEF programme, that pass the start-up stage would be integrated into the supply chains of larger lead businesses and provided with needs-based technical assistance.

Mr Mankralo explained that in cooperation with the Swiss Association for Entrepreneurial in Emerging Markets, female TEF alumni with a high growth potential would go through an acceleration and growth programme and receive second stage financing of 10,000 Euros accompanied with technical assistance to further enhance their businesses.

Top performing beneficiaries would receive further add-on financial support of up to 50,000 Euros paid as a non-repayable grant, he added.

Madam Anna Himbson, the Deputy Executive Director, Ghana Enterprise Agency (GEA), said the theme for the launch corresponded to an initiative the GEA was about to launch dubbed, “Ghana Women Entrepreneurs Network” to boost growth of women in businesses.

Mrs Kate Quartey-Papafio, Chief Executive Officer, Reroy Cables Limited, in a speech read on her behalf, said it was an undeniable fact that women entrepreneurs did not have equity when it came to access to services, capital, lands and other resources for businesses.

“One priority of the Reroy is to see women dominate the energy and power sector. We, therefore, entreat all partners to ensure that the WE4A project looks at the male-dominated sectors like energy and support women in that regard,” she said.

She encouraged women who had little resources to start with the little capital they had, adding that with a great vision and efforts, they could gradually grow in business.

Mrs Linda Ofori-Kwafo, Executive Director, Ghana Integrity Initiative, said according to an African Development Bank report, women were more economically active in small and medium-sized enterprises than men and that women were less likely to be hired or promoted in the private sector.

She said that was very unfortunate and needed a collective effort from all stakeholders to address the situation and entreated civil society organisations and development partners to ensure that they equipped women with capital to enable them to have higher returns in their endeavours.