G7 leaders award $251 million to African women's initiative

Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) Initiative has been awarded $251 million by the G7 leaders, led by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Speaking at the 2019 edition of the G7 Summit held in France from 25^th to 27^th August, Macron said that was a step towards championing for gender equity.

“The AFAWA initiative comes from an African organization, the African Development Bank, which works with African guarantee funds and a network of African banks,” Macron said.

During a summit of African Heads of State in 2015, the African Development Bank was tasked with the implementation of a financing mechanism for women’s economic empowerment. This led to the birth of AFAWA initiative.

The AFAWA initiative works in three approaches:

Conducting training to enhance productivity and growth so as to strengthen the capacity of women entrepreneurs.

Creating incentives for lending to women in business.

Involving African governments to support reforms and break barriers to women in business.

With women operating close to 40% of SME’s in Africa, AFAWA aims to raise up to $5 billion for African women entrepreneurs. The African Development Bank will provide $1 (KSh103) billion financing.