By Modupe Gbadeyanka
African women fund managers have been promised financing support by Visa to help expand their businesses across the continent.
The fund, according to Visa, is earmarked for only 55 women who participated in a programme organised in 2020 by the African Women Impact Fund (AWIF).
The money is mainly for the working capital needs of women fund managers across South, East, and West Africa, a statement from the payments platform said.
AWIF is a collaboration between Standard Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the grant is an extension of the She’s Next program, a global advocacy program for women-owned businesses that have been expanded to Sub-Saharan Africa to further champion and strengthen African women business owners as they build, sustain, and advance their businesses.
Visa’s funding will be directed towards activities that will assist the business owners with improving their technical skillsets, becoming investible to larger institutional investors, and running profitable businesses that will in turn invest in others including small and medium businesses.
“The aim of She’s Next is to help women-owned businesses thrive and our ambition with this grant is to enable access in a space where women-owned firms are under-represented.
“Through this programme, we aim to ensure that women are not only recipients but become decision-makers where institutional funding for businesses is concerned,” said Aida Diarra, Senior Vice President & Head of Sub-Saharan Africa at Visa.
“The funding will ensure that these business owners are able to focus on growing their enterprises without the burden of managing short-term debt and other operational costs related to building a successful business” added Diarra.
Women fund managers in Africa continue to face numerous challenges in building sustainable businesses. Research shows slow-moving progress in the visibility and inclusion of women fund managers due to systematic barriers and investor bias.
With African women accounting for just 7.6 per cent of private equity and women-led businesses receiving only 7 per cent of Private Equity (PE) and Venture Capital (VC) in emerging markets, this highlights the opportunities that exist to reduce the current gender gaps, further reflecting in the less than 1.3 per cent of the $69.1 trillion global financial assets that are managed by women and people of colour.
