AfDB Chief Adesina reveals new tool to fathom level of institutional lending to women

While addressing the United Nations General Assembly 2019, the President of African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina has said that a new tool to track the level of lending to women across the continent would be significant to ensuring women in getting the critical financial assistance they require.

The Women’s Financing Index, currently under development, will rate banks and financial institutions who apply for loans from the African Development Bank, against the amounts they have lent or are lending to women, Akinwumi Adesina said right before the start of panel discussions organized by the Initiative for Global Development (IGD) in New York. The theme of the event was “Empowering Women in Conflict Zones in Africa.”

“Institutions will be rated by their development impact: the rate and volume at which they lend to women,” Akinwumi Adesina opined. The African Development Bank via its Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa initiative intends to mobilize USD 3 billion to bridge the financial gap for women in entire Africa.

“Access to finance is at the root of development initiatives…that is why Afreximbank was created,” Fofack said, adding that Afreximbank’s top goals included supporting African women in agri-processsing to minimize post-harvesting losses, and acting as trade financing intermediaries. “We are committed to providing loans but we also grow with our clients,” Hippolyte Fofack, chief economist of Afreximbank said. He revealed his vision to promote intra-African trade was directly tied to the theme of providing women with credit.

Women in Africa, despite being at the forefront of economic activity on the continent, are disproportionately disadvantaged, particularly those in conflict-ridden areas, who are three times less likely to go to school, have less access to resources and justice, and are unable to obtain funding for businesses, farming and other commercial ventures.

In a second panel, moderated by African Development Bank director for gender, women and civil society, Vanessa Moungar, panelists discussed the “nexus of peace, security, environment and development.” Opening the session, Denise Tshisekedi, the first lady of the Democratic Republic of Congo, spoke of the disadvantaged position Congolese women held:  50-80 percent of women work in farming, while only 30 percent have access to the formal work sector. “The biggest problem is conflict and displacement,” she said.