GAWE PROMOTE WOMEN TO ACCESS CREDIT FACILITIES

The Ghanaian Association of women Entrepreneurs(GAWE) Supported by the Business sectors advocacy challenge(BUSAC) Fund has undertaking advocacy action to help reduce the problems women entrepreneurs face in the accessing credit from financial institutions.
The project which was tittle”women Access to Credit” is to help Sensitize financial institutions to pay more attention on women, small and medium enterprise to have easy access to credit.
At the launch of the product the National President of Ghana Association of women entrepreneurs. Lucia Quarchey said the advocacy programmes is aimed at a series of discussions and will conclude by signing of MOU with Fidelity banks that have shown interest in the programmes and participating in the advocacy action to bring changes to the banking culture and help to develop a new products tailor to suit the needs of women entrepreneur and SME.This component the last and final stage of the action is to hold a stakeholders conference and create a platform for stakeholders to discuss how funds can be made more accessible to women entrepreneurs.In the view of GAWE, there are so many financial institutions with varied products on offer to business in Ghana, however, the difficulty in accessing these credits facilities, the cumbersome processes as well as the need for collateral security and the need for long term financial facilities for industry still remain a challenge for Micro, small and medium Enterprises especially that of woman. What are the options that women have in facilitating their access to financial to grow their businesses?A small minority of women happens to be in the formal sector engaged in processing and packaging specifically in areas of export, fashion design and manufacturing of clothes and textile, areas of toy making, arts and crafts manufacturing , telecommunication, travel and tour and tour agency operation and servicewomen in business both formal and informal play a very important role in national development as increased income in the hands of women in invested in health, education and housing for their families. As SMEs women not only make huge contribution towards the growth and development and incomes to Ghanaian economy through the generation of employment and incomes to majority of the people, but they also create reliable social safety nets for their families and communities. They perform services necessary for household survival, but these fall outside the realm of formal market-oriented production and no monetary reward attached, and also mainly not reflected in national accountants for business women, both formal and informal joggle daily multiple roles as business women, wife and mother. These roles each require a lot of time and attention, therefore to maintain national cohesion and strong family ties to enable the family perform its role in the national developmental process, the special and peculiar needs of women in the business needs to be tackled with realistically, creatively, effectively and with all the urgency it requires.She further stated that independent women live longer, have fewer and better educated children, and this is good for the development of the nation both socially and economically.It is based on this critical constraint, the lack of access to credit by women entrepreneurs and small business owners in general.