Bukola Afeni
Editor
AfDB Director for Gender, Women and Civil Society, Vanessa Moungar, have joined high-level representatives from global financial institutions and UN Women in signing a joint declaration on gender equality.
The declaration is one of the highlight of a Finance in Common Summit panel hosted virtually by the French Development Agency. Agence Française de Development (AFD), during the Paris Peace Forum on 12 November.
According to agency report from News Agency of Nigeria, gender inequality costs sub-Saharan Africa $95 million each year.
The Director added that the Bank is investing in empowering women entrepreneurs through its Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) programme.
“It is designed to tackle the challenges women in business faces, from access to finance and training to the lack of an enabling environment. We have agreed to strengthen our commitment to gender equality. We are doing this through mainstreaming gender in its operations, as well as targeted initiatives, all supported by evidence-backed policy dialogue.”
She explained that AfDB is taking the lead in accelerating efforts to address gender inequality and drive inclusive economic transformation for women across Africa.
Executive Vice President of the Turkey-based investment and development bank, TSKB, Meral Murathan, believes that development bank actors hold the key to drive the gender equality and equity agenda.
The Gender and Social Specialist at Green Climate Fund, Seblewongel Deneke Negussie, said the organization considers funding proposals that include consistent gender analysis.
“We also considers, assessment, action plan, and gender-responsive policies in project design and implementation. We views women as key drivers to build back better, resilient communities.
We recognized that the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on women had widened gender inequality around the world.”
Recall that in order to address these and other pandemic-related challenges, the AFDB Group launched a $10 billion COVID-19 Rapid Response Facility (CRF) in April 2020.
It provides a fast, flexible and effective financing mechanism to help African governments and the private sector.
