-Urges innovative funding
Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister of Economy, Planning and Development, Nialé Kaba, has declared African women entrepreneurs “untapped gold mines,” urging governments and financial institutions to deploy innovative funding tools to unlock their continent-wide economic potential.
Speaking at the 2025 Africa Investment Forum Market Days, Minister Kaba delivered her remarks during a high-level workshop organised by the African Development Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative. She called for decisive political will and tailored financial instruments to turn individual women-led businesses into collective victories for Africa.
Despite African women boasting the highest entrepreneurship rate in the world at 24 per cent, they still face an estimated $50 billion annual financing gap that stifles growth and job creation. Minister Kaba, who also serves as the African Development Bank Group Governor for Côte d’Ivoire, highlighted that women entrepreneurs consistently outperform market averages with an impressively low non-performing loan rate of just 2.4 per cent.
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“It is precisely in the face of this market failure – where profitability is proven but capital is held back – that the state and institutions like the African Development Bank must intervene to activate correction tools,” Kaba told the audience of investors, policymakers and development partners.
She concluded by championing blended finance as the strategic lever needed to close the gender funding gap, stating: “Blended finance is a tool that we must use massively to increase capital access for our entrepreneur sisters and liberate their full potential.” Her remarks received strong applause, reinforcing growing momentum to make women’s economic empowerment a cornerstone of Africa’s development agenda.
