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From Africa Renewal, Vol.20 #3 (October 2006), page 6

By Gumisai Mutume

Another focus of action has been on spreading entrepreneurship skills beyond the schools. A number of countries have introduced entrepreneurship training programmes, including Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. Policymakers believe that the promotion of small-business enterprises and the informal sector offer quick solutions to joblessness.

In Nigeria, which has more than 10 million small-business owners, the government supports new entrepreneurs through a network of about 20 industrial development centres that train youth, help them turn their ideas into feasible business ventures and supply them with credit.

But many of these programmes are not easily accessible to women, notes Ms. Christiana Okojie of the University of Benin, Nigeria. “Studies have shown that women tend to benefit less … as they are crowded out by men,” she reports. Women are at the back of the job queue, since they generally have lower levels of education, due in part to cultural and other biases against the training of girls. Ms. Okojie argues that governments should put in place deliberate affirmative action policies for poor, rural women and should establish training programmes in sectors that employ many women, such as trading and agricultural processing.

Responding to the need for gender-specific programmes, women lawyers, bankers, entrepreneurs and trainers set up the Kenya Women Finance Trust in 1981. It is the only micro-finance institution in the country exclusively for women, and it has more than 100,000 members. It grants cheap credit to low-income earners to start small businesses.

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