Launch of UN & Equity Bank Partnership

Nairobi, 25 June 2007 - The FANIKISHA initiative is a joint effort by UNDP-Kenya and Equity Bank to promote Women Entrepreneurs in the country.UNDP estimates that 53% of rural women and 63% of urban women live below the poverty line. It is also estimated that 85% of businesses in the informal sector and 48% of small and micro-enterprises are owned by women who face the twin challenge of lack of business skills and financing.

Equity Bank will open three new branches in Nairobi to serve women only under a Kenya Shillings 5 billion programme with UNDP. The aim is to increase financial Aid to Women Entrepreneurs within the next 5 years. The Bank says the Funds will be used for medium and long term lending to increase women’s capacity and to expand their businesses. The lending initiative seeks to increase the competitiveness of businesses owned by women. An initial 2,000 business women have been selected for free training in the joint program as organized by UNDP,ILO and UNIDO .

The launch was graced by the presence of H.E President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya. President Mwai Kibaki has challenged women to increase their participation in the formal business sector by taking advantage of a Sh5 billion Women Investment Fund he launched Monday.

The President said women countrywide should take advantage of the fund together with the Sh2 billion Women Development Fund initiated by the government to unleash their full potential in business.

Kibaki lamented that the participation of women in the formal business sector was unacceptably low, yet they were the majority in the country, comprising about 52 per cent of the population.

"There is need to develop aggressive and creative forms of support to progressively enable them attain the status of equal partners with men in the formal business sector," said Kibaki.

Also present was the UN resident coordinator in Kenya, Ms Elizabeth Lwanga who said that the entry point towards the goal of gender equality was the economic empowerment of women.

"Encouraging the economic empowerment of women is not simply a matter of diversity and equality, important as it is," she said. "It is an economic imperative if Kenya is to maintain its position as a leading economy in Africa." She noted that women had the energy, drive and commitment to develop successful businesses.