Banks urged to support women

Harare Bureau
GOVERNMENT has appealed to financial institutions to extend more loans to women entrepreneurs amid revelations that the Women Development Fund (WDF) is insufficient to cater for a greater number of women.Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development Minister Oppah Muchinguri said the WDF had only received $750,000 instead of $2,5 million required for the fund to cater for women’s needs.

Women have difficulties in accessing bank loans as most of them do not have collateral.

“We only have $750,000 out of $2,5 million that we require in order to assist a larger proportion of women. We appeal to the banking sector to provide special loan windows for women entrepreneurs because the money allocated by the treasury to the fund is not sufficient,” Minister Muchinguri said.

“We have women that own land and are active in agricultural production which is important for food security but some of them are limited because they lack funding hence if they have access to these loans, they can be able to provide for their families and the country as a whole.”

The Women Development Fund is a revolving fund to promote economic empowerment of women at grass roots level.

Although government is in the process of establishing a Women’s Bank which will have flexible lending conditions for grassroots women, the project has not received any budget allocation this year.

The post 2014 budget report shows that while the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development was seeking more than $30 million for its budget excluding salaries, government only allocated it about $5 million.

Meanwhile, some women entrepreneurs who exhibited their products at the belated International Women’s Day commemorations on Wednesday said they were facing challenges in accessing capital while some bemoaned the unfavourable market.

A community-based organisation that promote sustainable development in rural communities, Cluster Agricultural Development Services (CADS) representative Angela Muranganwa said there was no market for value added products.

“We work in rural districts like Mutoko, Chigodora and Mutasa where we are working with more than 7,000 rural women who are into farming and also train them value addition,” she said.

“Sadly there is no market for products made from drought resistant crops such as sorghum scones, cow pea (nyemba) fritters as well as bread made from finger millet.

“We want to encourage women to make use of locally available products and encourage consumption.”