ECA commits to women’s access to capital, technology, digital financing

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) says it will continue to support its member states in their efforts to improve women’s access to capital, technology and digital financing.

Ms. Edlam Yemeru, Chief of the Urbanisation Section, Gender, Poverty and Social Policy Division, ECA said this in a presentation at the ongoing 39th ECA Committee of Experts meeting.

The meeting was on the sidelines of the commission’s 53rd session of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Addis Ababa.

The presentation was also on the Committee on Social Policy, Poverty Reduction and Gender.

Yemeru said women entrepreneurs continued to face greater barriers to accessing financing for their small and medium-sized businesses than their male counterparts.

She pointed out that the barriers resulted in women failing to grow, adding that her division was committed to working toward economic women empowerment in Africa.

The official said concerted efforts were needed from governments, international actors, and the financial industry to sustain more gender-focused policies for the continent to register progress in women’s empowerment.

Yemeru said that the ECA would also work across divisions to strengthen data on women empowerment.

She, however, called for follow-up support to member states that conduct time-use surveys to develop strategic responses on the workload of women in unpaid care-giving.

Yemeru further talked about the need for planned and job rich urbanisation, as more people continued to move to the cities across Africa.

She called on member states to align their economic plans with financing and planning for sustainable urbanisation.

This, she noted, was to better link urban and rural development and strengthen the interdependence between the two.

The committee agreed that much needed to be done faster to ensure the inclusion of the continent’s most vulnerable in social development policies in order to achieve true social development and reduce poverty.

The report called on the ECA to give more technical assistance to its member states, especially in the area of gender legislation.

Other recommendations for governments were social sector financing; managing rapid urban growth; seeking digital solutions; and investing in data evidence.

The aim of the third session of the Committee on Social Policy, Poverty and Gender was to review and provide strategic orientation to the work of the division.

Also, the session aimed to share the division’s new areas of focus and policy interventions in delivering on its mandate to eradicate extreme poverty and reduce inequality for inclusive and equitable growth.

The theme of this year’s conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development is “Sustainable Industrialisation and Diversification of Africa in the Digital Era in the Context of COVID-19”.