Africa

Felix Tshisekedi looks back at his first year in power in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Tribal women converge at the Boipariguda weekly market in Koraput District, in India’s Odisha state, to sell and buy farm produce. Indigenous communities remain at the centre of those affected by climate change, he said, disproportionately bearing the brunt of the crisis and facing higher risks. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 23 2020 (IPS)

More than 70 percent of the global population is currently living in parts of the world where income inequality has grown, according to a World Social Report 2020 launched by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). 

The report, which was launched at the U.N. on Tuesday, identified four “megatrends” that impacts this inequality:  technological innovation, climate change, urbanisation and international migration.

“The report underscores that these mega trends can be harnessed for a more equitable and sustainable world or they can be left alone to divide us further,” Elliott Harris, U.N. Chief Economist and Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development at DESA, said at the launch. 

He added that the current climate crisis especially causes the slowdown in reducing inequality between countries and further “presents major obstacle to reduce poverty”.

Indigenous communities remain at the centre of those affected by climate change, he said, disproportionately bearing the brunt of the crisis and facing higher risks. 

“And it’s affecting intergenerational inequality as well,” he said. 

Technological innovation, digital division

With regards to technology, Harris said technological innovations are “pushing wage inequality upwards”. 

“Despite its immense promise, technological change creates winners and losers and its rapid pace brings additional new challenges,” he said. 

But the “digital divide” exists through access to technology and technological devices (or lack thereof). According to the report, almost 90 percent of the population of most developed countries have access to the Internet, while only 19 percent of the population in least developed countries have the same access. 

According to the U.N. Committee for Development Policy (CDP) data from 2018, the list of least developed countries includes many countries in Africa — a continent being lauded for its massive technological growth.

As a PwC report on Africa states, “disruptive innovation is transforming Africa’s economic potential, creating new target markets and unprecedented consumer choice”. It then begs the question how technological divide is perpetuating inequality in these countries. 

When asked, Harris acknowledged this growth but added those countries that are lagging behind have a lot of “catching up” to do.

“The fact remains that because of the rapid advancement of technological innovation, the time that its taking to establish a digital infrastructure is time at which the advanced countries continue to move ahead at increasingly rapid pace,” he told IPS. 

“The cycles of tech innovation are getting shorter and shorter,” he said, adding a hypothetical analysis that by the time a developing country has set up 5G, a developed country is already establishing 8G.

“And we need to make a really concerted effort to catch up really quickly,” he said, “we need a big jump; we can’t go progressively at the speed at which we did it in the past.” 

A vicious cycle?

Another notable observation made in the report was how those who are poor and remain without access to education or healthcare remain at the core of the struggle.

“Disparities in health and education make it challenging for people to break out of the cycle of poverty, leading to the transmission of disadvantage from one generation to the next,” read a part of the report.

This is especially concerning at a time when the world has a massive refugee population that only continues to grow, whether due to climate change or conflict. The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) states the current refugee crisis is “unprecedented” with a total of 70.8 million people forcibly displaced.  

For communities that remain in transit, it poses a challenge to establish access to health and education, which can thus hinder the process of breaking out the poverty cycle, thus perpetuating the gap between the poor and the rich. 

When asked, Harris said this vicious cycle is “a very serious concern that we have.” 

“The problem, of course, is [in] many cases the refugees are concentrated in places that do not have large amount of additional resources they can devote to support refugees and so they are very dependent on the support of the international community,” he told IPS. 

“It’s been relatively less difficult to mobilise support at the onset of the crisis when people have to flee,” he said, adding that maintaining that support when in some cases they’re in refugee camps or displaced from their homelands for years at a time” is what becomes challenging. 

He lauded the efforts by host countries for doing their best in hosting the refugees, and added that the international community has a responsibility to “step up and help these host countries.” 

Marta Roig, Chief of Emerging Trends and Issues in the Development Section, Division for Inclusive Social Development, DESA, was also present at the launch.

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The post Global Inequality Continues to Grow: UNDESA Report appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Lyon sign Zimbabwe striker Tino Kadewere from French rivals Le Have and loan him back to the Ligue 2 side for the rest of the season.

Africa's richest woman has been formally accused of embezzlement by her country's prosecutors.

Gambian Abubacarr Tambadou has forced the Nobel laureate to defend Myanmar against genocide charges.

Seventeen big cats rescued from Guatemalan circuses have moved to a South African wildlife sanctuary.

The West African country has partnered with UNICEF to transform landfill waste into bricks for schools.

Resident of Hamdaniya district stands before a house destroyed in a Coalition airstrike, February 2017. Credit: Mark Lattimer /Ceasefire

By Mark Lattimer
LONDON, Jan 22 2020 (IPS)

As Iraq this month faces the threat of new conflicts – including a proxy war between the US and Iran – the shadow of the last conflict runs long.

Two years ago the Iraqi prime minister declared victory over ISIS, but parts of Ninewa and Anbar are still in ruins, some 1.5 million people remain displaced and families have only begun to grieve for the tens of thousands killed.

Nowhere is this devastation more apparent than in Mosul, Iraq’s second city and the epicentre of the ISIS conflict. The World Bank has estimated that losses to the Mosul housing sector alone are estimated at US $6 billion.

And as revealed in a new report from the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights and Minority Rights Group International, 35,000 claims for reparation for deaths, injury or destruction of property have now been lodged by victims of the ISIS occupation and the ‘liberation’ battle.

Interviews with civilians on the ground uncover a complex picture of loss and abandonment. The population who suffered under the occupation feel they were doubly punished by the devastating conflict waged to end it. Yazidis, Christians and other minorities who were forced to flee still remain largely displaced, despairing at the fact that no-one has been brought to justice for the crimes committed against them.

In such circumstances, individual reparations are essential, not least for reconciliation, a concept much-invoked by international missions in Iraq but rarely specified. Without formal recognition for the loss they have suffered and practical help to rebuild, civilians cannot move on.

As one interviewee explained: ‘The compensation payments will never bring me back the loved ones I lost, nor will they allow me to rebuild my house as if nothing happened. But they will help us all to rebuild the city and bring back life into it.’

But among those claiming reparations, long-standing frustration is turning into growing resentment. The claims have been made under Iraq’s Law 20 which established a system for awarding compensation to ‘the victims of military operations, military mistakes and terrorist actions’.

Over 420 billion Iraqi dinars (US $355 million) has been awarded under the scheme since it was first established ten years ago, but it has been overwhelmed by the scale of claims from the ISIS conflict. Claimants in Mosul complain of cumbersome bureaucratic procedures and pay-outs are agonisingly slow.

Meanwhile, the US-led Coalition against ISIS appears to have washed its hands of responsibility. During the nine-month battle the Coalition supported Iraqi forces mainly from the air, and it was Coalition bombardment which, along with ISIS vehicle-borne IEDs, was responsible for most of the material destruction of the city.

The monitoring group Airwars has conservatively estimated that between 1,066 and 1,579 civilians were killed by Coalition air and artillery strikes during the battle for Mosul. Local estimates are much higher. The Coalition describes all civilian deaths caused by its action as ‘unintentional’ and refuses to accept any liability for violations for which reparations should be paid.

Even the system of making discretionary ‘condolence’ payments in such cases, which the US employed previously in Afghanistan as well as Iraq, appears not to be applicable. In its annual report on civilian casualties, the Department of Defense states: ‘…in cases where a host nation or government requests US military support for local military forces, it may be more appropriate for the host nation or its military to respond to the needs and requests of the local civilian population by offering condolences themselves’.

But questions about the tactics used by the Coalition in Mosul, and in other recent sieges, are becoming hard to ignore. The civilian death toll acknowledged by the Coalition is slowly climbing, as it is pressured to reassess credible local reports, and currently stands at 1,347 deaths caused by Coalition actions in the anti-ISIS conflict across Iraq and Syria.

A claim last year by the UK Ministry of Defence that no civilians had been injured in over 1,300 Royal Air Force strikes in Iraq was met with open disbelief. In November the Dutch Defence Ministry finally admitted that Dutch forces had been involved in two airstrikes in Iraq in which at least 74 people, including civilians, were killed, but it still denied any liability for reparations.

The people of Mosul have nonetheless started to rebuild their homes and their city, albeit with inadequate support. Sponsorship by foreign governments of prestige projects, including the reconstruction of the great mosque of al-Nuri, is important for restoring Moslawis’ pride in their city and their cultural heritage.

Less high profile, but arguably more significant, is the ongoing work of UN and other humanitarian agencies to support basic services, including for IDPs. But, as so often in Iraq, the UN is caught in a bind. UN OCHA warned earlier this week that operations to deliver medicine, food and other assistance to 2.4 million in need were now compromised by the delay in the Iraqi government renewing letters of authorization.

Nor is the ISIS conflict over. In the west of Iraq military operations against ISIS continue, including with the support of the Coalition.

ISIS’ supporters are now gone from Mosul, a city which more than any other in Iraq knows the reality of ISIS rule. But with little official acknowledgement of the suffering of the population, practical help slow in coming for civilians to rebuild their lives, and tens of thousands of young men growing up in displacement, the situation is not sustainable.

As one interviewee for the report said: ‘I haven’t seen such anger in Mosul since 2003. It is a very dangerous situation.’

Iraq has tragically demonstrated in recent decades that the failure to deal with the legacy of past conflicts affects both the speed and the severity of their return. For the cause of both justice and peace, the question of reparations for civilian harm is now urgent.

‘Mosul after the Battle: Reparations for civilian harm and the future of Ninewa’ is published on 22 January and available at https://bit.ly/3ayqB0M

The post Mosul, an Epicentre of the ISIS Conflict, is a Devastated Iraqi City appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Mark Lattimer is Executive Director of CEASEFIRE Centre for Civilian Rights

The post Mosul, an Epicentre of the ISIS Conflict, is a Devastated Iraqi City appeared first on Inter Press Service.

MPs also backed a proposal for President Pierre Nkurunziza to become the country's "supreme leader".

It would build upon an existing ban which bars entry for citizens of seven mostly Muslim countries.

The medics were off work for more than four months, paralysing the country's healthcare sector.

Yoweri Museveni says Irish potatoes, vegetables, and coffee with no sugar, helped him lose weight.

By GGGI
PARIS, Jan 22 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) signed a Declaration of Intent and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE) and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), a French development bank today to promote sustainable development and climate action. The signing was witnessed by Mr. Ban Ki-moon, President and Chair of GGGI.

The MoUs complement the joint declaration of the France-Korea Summit in 2018 where the two countries pledged to support GGGI’s activities and efforts to accelerate the adoption of green growth models in developing and emerging countries.

“This is the first time GGGI has signed MoUs with the Government of France and a French development bank. The cooperation agreements we signed today will be a start of our collaboration, bringing opportunities on a number of fronts. We look forward to strengthening our partnerships with the MEAE and AFD to support countries achieve solid and ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for the Paris Agreement,” said Dr. Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of GGGI.

Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and setting ambitious climate action targets require strong partnerships and collaboration between development partners. The MEAE plans to promote collaboration between AFD and GGGI with regards to joint funding programs.

Remy Rioux, Director-General of AFD said, “We are delighted to work together with GGGI to build innovative green investments mechanisms, especially in Africa as one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change despite contributing the least to global warming. By partnering with GGGI, I am confident that we will create synergies and support countries to deliver on Paris Agreement commitments.”

Under the MoU, GGGI and AFD have agreed to collaborate through undertaking several financing operations to promote sustainable economic development in developing and emerging countries, including the least developed countries. The two organizations seek to deliver economic growth that is both environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive. GGGI and AFD will help countries access climate finance to implement ambitious climate actions with a focus on the development of National Financing Vehicles. In addition, the two organizations will enhance countries’ NDC planning and implementation by providing support for long-term low-carbon and resilient economic development strategies/plans and Monitoring, Review and Verification (MRV) systems.

GGGI will strengthen its commitment to French-speaking developing countries to achieve their climate action goals, including the implementation of their NDCs, the formulation of resilient and low-carbon long-term economic development strategies, and the development of reliable systems for measuring, reporting and verifying greenhouse gas emissions.

“The signing of the Declaration of Intent comes at a time when there is an urgent need to take action in addressing global warming, which is in line with the commitments of the Paris Climate Agreement and 2030 Agenda,” said Philippe Lacoste, Director for Sustainable Development, MEAE.

GGGI will support countries to accelerate access to climate finance, particularly by developing innovative green investment funds and mechanisms, facilitating these countries to access the Green Climate Fund (GCF), as well as working together on the development of portfolio of green bankable projects.

The post GGGI inks Declaration of Intent and MoU with the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Agence Française de Développement to strengthen cooperation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Joe Brusky.

By Eco Matser
AMSTERDAM, Jan 22 2020 (IPS)

For the first time, the world’s elites meeting this year at Davos have listed environmental issues as their top concerns about the next decade.

The WEF’s annual Global Risks Report raises the alarm on increased extreme weather events, manmade environmental damage – including oil spills and contamination, major biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and failure of governments and businesses to mitigate and adapt to climate change. All resulting in loss of human and animal life, and major damage to infrastructure, with irreversible consequences for the environment.

“The political landscape is polarized, sea levels are rising and climate fires are burning. This is the year when world leaders must work with all sectors of society to repair and reinvigorate our systems of cooperation, not just for short-term benefit but for tackling our deep-rooted risks,” said Borge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum.

“The political landscape is polarized, sea levels are rising and climate fires are burning. This is the year when world leaders must work with all sectors of society to repair and reinvigorate our systems of cooperation, not just for short-term benefit but for tackling our deep-rooted risks,”

Borge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum

Does this mean that after Davos 2020 businesses and governments are actually going tackle these realities seriously and with the necessary financial investments? Seeing is believing.

 

Fundamental change of systems needed

If businesses and governments are serious about combating climate change, they must increase investments in climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as in the larger development agenda (Agenda 2030). However, this alone will not be enough.

If businesses do not start fundamentally changing current financial systems, we risk gaining only short-term benefits instead of addressing the real root causes.

The current world economy still relies on fossil fuels and energy-intensive production systems. And the fossil fuel industry continues to receive large subsidies from governments and investment banks. Although investment in renewable energy is on the rise, as long as fossil fuels are subsidized we will not make a shift towards zero-carbon economies.

Many argue that not investing in fossil fuels hinders the development of low-income countries by denying them access to the same economic opportunities as high-income countries.

However, this just masks a lack of will on the part of the world’s business elites who have the power and finances to pioneer a true transition. They are ignoring the fact that the economics of renewable energy have changed and there are many ways for low-income countries to leapfrog fossil fuels.

To succeed, the governments and companies at Davos should do two things:

1. Apply an integrated approach to mitigation, adaptation and development.
2. Ensure an inclusive process and equal access to benefits of climate change measures.

 

An integrated approach

Mitigation, adaptation and development should not be three separate work streams. As shown in this article, effective climate action requires coherence between measures. Take investing in renewable energy. It directly reduces the emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

But when used to provide energy access to the most vulnerable, it also brings communities social and economic benefits that increase their resilience to climate change.

For example, access to energy provides services for small-scale farmers or community enterprises, like solar powered agricultural irrigation systems, or food processing and storage. This in turn increases their general economic and climate resilience.

Another example is access to clean cooking solutions instead of burning wood. This not only reduces air pollution and deforestation, but also improves women and children’s health and frees up time for studying or income-producing activities. This in turn strengthens their position in society.

 

Inclusive process and equal access

On the one hand, we must invest vast resources to mitigate and adapt to global climate change; on the other, we need to tackle the deep injustices that lie at the heart of the climate crisis. The challenge is therefore to ensure a just transition in which all communities have equal access to the benefits of measures taken to tackle climate change.

Ironically, developing countries bear the brunt of the effects of climate change created by 150 years of unfettered industrial and agricultural development in the West. So we, in the West, have a moral obligation to help finance an inclusive climate transition and achieve the SDG development agenda.

 

A truly just transition

A truly just transition means including those who are generally left out of the decision-making processes: women, youth, and local or rural (indigenous) communities. So give back power to local communities and offer opportunities for collaborative decision-making.

Access to information, public participation and direct involvement of local communities are key to foster transformative societal change. But failure to act on the climate crisis in an inclusive, participatory manner will certainly fuel even greater distrust of political elites and representative democracy.

So, as governments and businesses gather in Davos, we urge them to listen to the words of Borge Brende when he says world leaders must reinvigorate the system of cooperation and focus on long-term benefits.

Only when they start investing substantially in tackling root causes and transforming systems in an integrated and inclusive way, will putting climate change at the top of the WEF’s agenda really mean something. Hivos will follow the conversations with interest and believe when we see.

 

This opinion piece was originally published here

The post Will 2020 World Economic Forum Deliver on Combating Climate Change? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Eco Matser is Hivos global Climate Change / Energy and Development Coordinator

The post Will 2020 World Economic Forum Deliver on Combating Climate Change? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 22 2020 (IPS)

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared last week that the United Nations just “managed to survive its deepest financial crisis in a decade.”

But if countries continue to default on their assessed contributions to the world body – as 47 countries did in 2019 — the UN may be heading for another liquidity crisis in 2020, he warned.

“Unless all member states pay their assessed contributions on time and in full”, Guterres declared, “we risk receiving insufficient funds to implement the entire programme of work and the full budget approved for 2020.”

That budget, voted by the 193-member General Assembly last month, was $3.1 billion for 2020: an increase of approximately $8 million on what was initially requested by Guterres.

And it also marks the first time since 1973 that the UN is adopting an annual budget instead of a two-year one.

UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on January 10 the United Nations closed out 2019 with 146 out of 193 member states having paid their dues in full for the last year’s budget.

Asked how another cash crunch was expected to impact on UN staffers in 2020, Patricia Nemeth, President of the United Nations Staff Union (UNSC) told IPS the General Assembly approving the budget– and individual countries paying their dues on time– are two different issues.

If member states don’t pay their contributions on time, then there could indeed be another cash crisis with repercussions for UN staff — both at UN headquarters and in overseas postings, she said.

“It’s not just about salaries; even the prospect of a repeat of last year’s liquidity crisis is disruptive to our daily work as UN staff, as we are unable to plan in advance so as to deliver our mandate in the most efficient and cost-effective manner”, said Nemeth, who is also Vice President for Conditions of Service at the 60,000-strong Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA).

Currently, the total membership of the UN staff union in New York is approximately 6,400 but overall it is close to 20,000 (representing UNHQs NY staff, locally recruited staff in overseas peacekeeping missions and some of the departments that are governed by the Secretariat but their offices based outside of New York ie.United Nations Information Centres (UNIC)

Credit: United Nations

Addressing the Group of 77 developing countries last week, Guterres said: “I will continue to manage our cash situation carefully, and I count on your continued support to help us avoid a deeper crisis. To this end, I hope that we could find more sustainable solutions to our cash problems.”

Over the years, he pointed out, “we have spent our budgets on the assumption that we should receive sufficient cash at the start of each year to execute the entire budget smoothly during the year.”

“In reality, we receive nearly half in the first three months but almost a quarter comes only at the very end of the year, leaving a very poor liquidity situation especially from July to October.”

“We could manage in the cash-strapped months if we had sufficient liquidity reserves and more flexibility in managing our resources as a pool. But our regular budget liquidity reserves are insufficient and structural impediments prevent us from minimizing the impact across programmes,” Guterres said.

He also said the UN’s programme implementation is now increasingly being driven by the availability of cash, “which is entirely against the way we should be working.”

Asked if the UN is in the process of eliminating short term and consultancy contracts –and whether teleconferencing has replaced overseas assignments– Nemeth said the UN does not eliminate temporary contracts, which are a regular component of the hiring structure.

“While the Staff Union will always advocate for job security, we do understand that the UN sometimes needs to make short-term hires to cover specific needs.”

However, she said, all staff working for the UN should be full-fledged employees, with a contract that guarantees the backing, resources and independence required to perform their tasks exclusively in the interest of the Organization and its mandates.

As for consultancy contracts, she said, “we welcome the General Assembly’s instruction ‘that the Organization should use its in-house capacity to perform core activities or to fulfill functions that are recurrent over the long term’”.

On teleconferencing, she said: “We cannot say that teleconferencing has replaced overseas travel, as UN staff are often posted in a country different from their own to perform specialized assignments”.

However, aside from their permanent assignments, colleagues make every effort to limit travel for meetings and discuss issues whenever possible via virtual technology.

“We are fully aware of the economic and environmental cost of our travel,” said Nemeth.

Asked if regular staffers are assured of permanent stay in New York or was it mandatory for them to serve in overseas posts, Nemeth said regular staff are not assured a permanent position in New York.

All international staff, she said, are encouraged to move geographically during their career.

“A new mobility policy is under development (under the umbrella of the staff-management committee working group) and we will have to see whether or not the proposal contains a mandatory requirement to move”.

She said the Staff Union in New York does not advocate for mandatory mobility, based on the results of a survey that was conducted in 2019 among New York staff.

Staff are very interested in a mobility scheme that is voluntarily in nature and that focuses on intra-departmental moves and/ or inter-agency mobility within the UN system, Nemeth declared.

On the UN’s proposed new locations, including Budapest, Nairobi, Montreal and Shenzen, Nemeth said: “There is no decision by the Member States, as of today, concerning the Global Service Delivery Model or any potential new offices”.

This will be discussed at the first resumed session of the General Assembly in the spring.

“We are following the matter closely, as it could affect the jobs of colleagues who are locally hired in the existing headquarter locations.”

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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The Libya Football Federation is considering an invite to replace Tunisia at the 2020 African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Cameroon,

Soi Cate Chelang, a self-taught palette seat designer and carpenter, hard at work. She says that even after a decade of running her business she is unable to get bank credit to expand. Her situation is not a unique one in Africa. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Jan 22 2020 (IPS)

What stands between Soi Cate Chelang and her dream of turning her small pallet-making business into a major enterprise is capital.

In Kenya, Chelang may well be a pioneer in making seats out of wooden pallets — the flat pieces of wood used to support goods or containers during shipping.

While she has no formal training in carpentry, Chelang tells IPS that she comes from a long line of carpenters, having trained under her grandfather and uncle. And what she doesn’t know, she learns from online lessons on carpentry.

She started the business more than a decade ago — before anyone else was doing it — and her products have been popular with consumers.

“My designs stand out because I combine many different elements. It is not just about turning wood into a seat. I use colourful fabrics and female clients enjoy fabrics that brighten their homes. I also make kids furniture from pallets and use fabric that have popular cartoons on them,” she expounds. Chelang sells her three-seater household pallet sofa for 100 to 300 dollars, depending on the design and material used.

Clients seek her services through her social media pages where she markets her products under the name Soi Pallet Designs.

Not enough credit to grow

But the 35-year-old is worried that the opportunity to cash in on her unique designs is passing her by.

“I do not have the money to set up a proper workshop and showroom. I cannot apply for contracts to make pallet seats for major entertainment clubs in the city because I do not have capital to finance such big orders,” she says, explaining that such clubs are interested in her designs.

“I managed to take one order of 5,000 dollars in 2018 because one of my mentors provided me with the capital to finance the order,” she says.

But that was a once-off. Because without collateral, she says, the banks will grant her a business loan. So for now she has to make seats to order. Even in this instance her clients must first pay 30 to 50 percent of the total cost to enable her to purchase materials and pay for some of her labour costs.

“I work with three carpenters who I pay on a daily basis. We only take one order at a time because I do not have a proper workshop and I cannot afford to hire more carpenters,” Chelang expounds.

The circumstances have served to confine her business to her home in Kisumu City some 350 kilometres away from Kenya’s capital Nairobi.

Traditional credit not available for African women 

But Chelang’s inability to expand her business is not a new story. According to the MasterCard Index of Women Entrepreneurs 2017, a lack of capital is one of the major challenges facing women doing business in Africa today, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.  

This is despite data by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report of 2017-18 showing that sub-Saharan Africa has taken the lead as the only region where women form the majority of self-employed individuals. 

• According to the report, globally, Africa has the most positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship as 76 percent of working age adults consider entrepreneurship a good career choice, while another 75 percent believe that entrepreneurs are admired in their societies.
• Over the last decade, the number of women joining entrepreneurship is on a steady rise, the GEM report states. Women are high-technology developers in Kenya or, like Chelang, are making waves in the informal sector.
• Female entrepreneurs are also in the steel manufacturing business in South Africa, and in the cocoa agro-processing businesses in Ivory Coast and the larger West African region.
• Even more impressive, the MasterCard Index of Women Entrepreneurs 2017 indicates that Uganda and Botswana have the highest percentage of women entrepreneurs globally. Other countries in this league include Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia.

Women in entrepreneurship stand to gain from the African Development Bank’s affirmative action financing. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

Setting up lasting financial structures to benefit Africa’s women

Aware of the financial constraints facing women in business, the African Development Bank (AfDB) is making concerted efforts to address the widening financing gap between male and female entrepreneurs in Africa.

The pan-African bank has placed the financing gap between male and female entrepreneurs across Africa, at a whopping 42 billion dollars.

To address this gap, the African Heads of State launched the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) programme back in 2016. 

• As a joint pan-African initiative between AfDB and the African Guarantee Fund, AFAWA is a risk-sharing facility that will de-risk lending to women-owned and women-led businesses.
• During the most recent Global Gender Summit held in Kigali in 2019, AFAWA was officially launched in Rwanda. The affirmative action programme received a one-million-dollar commitment from the Rwandese government. Still in 2019, G7 leaders approved a package totalling 251 million dollars in support of AFAWA.
• Additionally, Attijariwafa Bank, a Moroccan multinational commercial bank, and the African Guarantee Fund have signed a 50 million dollar Memorandum of Understanding towards risk lending to women through partial guarantees.

By using a holistic approach, this affirmative action programme will address the major factors preventing women in Africa, including the access of financial products and services such as loans. Consequently these financial services will also be accessible and affordable as well.

AFAWA finance will unlock three billion dollars in credit for women in businesses and enterprises in Africa. Towards this goal, this programme will work with existing commercial banks and microfinance institutions to engineer lasting structural changes, to the benefit of women across the continent.

Further, there will be a rating system to evaluate financial institutions based on the extent to which they lend to women, and the consequent socio-economic impact. Top institutions will receive preferential terms from the pan-African bank.

Sustainable, women-owned businesses will contribute to the economy

Financial experts such as Irene Omari say the AFAWA is important for women’s financial inclusion. A banker and leading entrepreneur in the Lakeside City of Kisumu, Omari tells IPS that “banks do not take female entrepreneurs seriously. Banks are still a long way from embracing women doing business. We are still considered very high risk by financial institutions because we lack collateral”.

As the sole proprietor of Top Strategy Achievers Limited, a multi-million-shilling branding and printing company, she is all too familiar with the financial challenges facing women in business today.

“I started working at 23 years old in the hospitality industry. I would also act as a middle person between branding companies and clients. In Kisumu City this services were hard to find. I saved every coin that I made and used it as capital,” she says.

Omari registered her company in 2013. She began operations in the same year while still employed at a local bank. “My salary paid the two staff that I had in the beginning, office rent, and all other overheads until the company could stand on its feet,” she says.

She says that because women, like Chelang, are not considered bankable they are significantly constrained in setting up solid, physical infrastructures to drive the growth and sustainability of their businesses.

“This is the reason why women are in self-employment where they basically work for themselves and not in entrepreneurship where they bring as many employees on board as possible,” Omari expounds.

• In Omari’s case she is an entrepreneur, and need not be at the place of work at all times because the business can thrive and be sustainable even in their absence. In self-employment, the presence of the business owner must be felt at all times.

Francis Kibe Kiragu, a lecturer in gender and development studies at the University of Nairobi, tells IPS that while women have sufficiently demonstrated a desire to run their own enterprises, they suffer crippling financial exclusion.

“Women in self-employment or entrepreneurship are therefore driven by necessity and not innovation. They just want to meet their basic needs and as a result, they are perceived as contributing very little to the economy,” he observes.

Because of these challenges, he says that women are more likely than men to discontinue running a business. The GEM 2017 report confirms Kiragu’s assertions as it indicates that, while Africa may have the highest number of women running start-ups, the number of women running established businesses is lower.

In fact, in the sub-Saharan Africa region alone, there are two women starting a new business venture for every one woman running an established business, the report indicates.

“I started designing, making and marketing my pallet seats at 25 years old. Ten years later I am still facing the same financial challenges I faced when I started. Many times I have come close to abandoning this dream and finding employment,” says Chelang.

Through the AFAWA it is hoped that women like Chelang will soon be able to leverage financial instruments to their and their businesses’ benefit.

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The post Bridging Africa’s Great Gender-Financing Divide appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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