This archive report was first published on 9 December 2019.
Women-led enterprises in agriculture have huge potential for growth, but they face significant challenges in accessing credit. According to a recent study, women account for close to 60 percent of agricultural enterprises in Kenya, but they are denied credit from financial institutions due to various reasons, including low savings, existing debts, lack of collateral, and bad credit history.
One of the major initiatives aimed at addressing these setbacks is the Women Affirmative Access Window (WAAW) programme by Agriculture Finance Corporation (AFC). The programme aims to drive financial inclusion in agricultural finance by opening up funding for women and advancing them up to Sh1 billion in the next two years without requiring collateral.
"AFC aims to enhance access to agricultural finance by women across the value chains by increasing loans advanced to women to approximately Sh1.4 million per day or Sh1 billion in a calendar year," said AFC managing director Lucas Meso.
Mr Meso noted that the programme is in line with the Constitution of Kenya, which requires measures to be put in place to strengthen inclusivity and redress past disadvantages among vulnerable segments of the country's population.
Country Director UN Women, Anna Mutavati, highlighted the need for financial institutions to come up with more responsive products that respond to the capacity of women and their needs. "We are hoping that through a study like this we can engage financial institutions to come up with more responsive products that respond to the capacity of women and their needs, so that we do not burden them with loans that will leave them worse off than they were at the beginning," she said.
According to a survey conducted by Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) and the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, women play a major role in agriculture in the continent, but they have been hampered financially as they cannot access funds easily to expand their enterprises.
