Why women are a good financial bet!

We read an interesting article this week, written by Angela Ajala, the National President of Business and Professional Women (BPW), Nigeria and Vice President of the African Women Entrepreneurship Programme (AWEP). Her theme was on the range of challenges affecting women in business on the continent and the measures needed to overcome them. One of the key challenges she highlighted was the difficulty experienced by women entrepreneurs in Africa to get financial support for their businesses. She believes it is basically due to long-established structures and traditional beliefs in society and culture arising from notions that have been held for years - that in African society, men are deemed to be in charge of both the home and business and deliver better in contracts than women. Yet, as she points out, this assumption flies in the face of research and statistics that show women pay back loans better than their male counterparts. In managing whatever financial resources they have well, those same women entrepreneurs earn high turnover from the money they have accessed. They also ensure they do not default on those loans so that the other women following in their business footsteps do not suffer as a result.