RWANDA BACKS WOMEN SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (SMEs)

Rwandan Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, Oda Gasinzigwa.

KIGALI, Rwanda - The government is continuing to develop ways of supporting women-owned Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) by trying to address the problems they may face.

“One of these challenges that such women face is poor information, especially about procurement. Most of them may not be well informed or not even informed, hence they may lose business,” Oda Gasinzigwa, the Minister of Gender and Family Promotion said recently.

The Minister was speaking at the recently concluded World Export Development Forum (WEDF) that was organized together with the Women Vendors’ Exhibition Forum (WVEF) in Kigali.

“As Government, we are looking at reworking on this. We are looking at how we can package it properly. We need to develop strategies with support from technical tools from organizations like the International Trade Centre (ITC), our own Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and others to see how to share such business information with the women so they can use it at the right moment; hence be able to access markets for their products,” the Minister said.

The WVEF is an ITC platform aimed at connecting women-owned small and medium enterprises to regional and international markets. This is why it was specifically co-organized with the WEDF.

According to Arancha Gonzalez, the ITC Executive Director, women entrepreneurs represent at least half of the entrepreneurs in any African country. She said such entrepreneurs reinvest about 90% of their revenues into their families and communities as compared to 40% in the case of men and this is why they should be supported by governments.

Gasinzigwa said, “With the challenge of capacities as government we need to come up with capacity programmes which are more comprehensive to support the women entrepreneurs become more competitive in doing business so they can do their business properly.” 

“To overcome such challenges, governments, the private sector, trade support institutions, and international organizations working together in a partnership is required,” Gonzalez said.

She said government procurement is one way to encourage women SMEs.

East African Business Week