Second Lady Samira Calls For Investment In Women Entrepreneurs
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Second Lady Samira Calls For Investment In Women Entrepreneurs
The Second Lady Samira Bawumia, has said investing in women entrepreneurship has a multiplier effects to the country’s socio-economic growth.
She said women were engaged in various economic activities that had translated into advanced growth, calling for concerted effort to focus on their contributions towards the acceleration of the country’s inclusive growth.
The Second Lady said this on Tuesday in Accra at the launch of a report: “Profiting from Parity: Unlocking the Potential of Women’s Business in Africa”, conducted by the World Bank Group.
“An educated woman is more likely to have a safe delivery with better prospects of having a prosperous family”.
Empowering women entrepreneurs, the Second Lady said, contributed to the smartest economies in today’s strategic development.
“Entrepreneurship is vital for every country’s development, its economic growth and job creation. Without entrepreneurship, there would be little innovation and productivity, she added.
Mrs Bawumia said the Sub-Sahara Africa had the highest rate of entrepreneurship in the world with approximately 42 per cent of the non-agriculture labour force classified as self-employed and employers.
“As a result of this phenomenon, most entrepreneurs are unable to grow their business beyond small scale subsistence operations, which is impeding their contributions to poverty reduction and shared prosperity”.
The World Bank report, states that, almost 50 per cent of women in the non-agriculture labour force were entrepreneurs. World Bank report of 2012 indicated that women were the third largest emerging market after China and India.
The Ghana Statistical Service estimated that women make up about 50.5 per cent of the labour force.
However, in Ghana, about 80 per cent of women are engaged in various economic activities and predominantly operating in a small and medium enterprises of the economy.
The Second Lady said the Sustainable Development Goal five; aimed to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030, adding that, women and men have equal opportunity to shape their own life and contribute to an enhanced productivity and improved development outcomes.
Mrs Bawumia said women faces many challenges and had to deal with many constraints in the pursuit of economic and entrepreneurial empowerment, including lower levels of education, financial illiteracy, and lower income levels.
She stated that, government had reaffirmed its continuous support to promoting women issues in the country, adding that, the Ministry of Business development through the women and the entrepreneurship programme have so far allocated GH¢10 million to support women entrepreneurship
The report focuses on the challenges that African women entrepreneur faced and identifies practical solutions.
It offers policy makers evidence-based guidance on designing programmes to target multiple obstacles and improve the performance of women entrepreneurs.
The report calls on African government to target on key policy areas to help empower female entrepreneurs.
Source: GNA
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