Women-led businesses must adopt partnerships, capacity building, and upskilling to foster growth, according to Patricia Okello, co-founder of Kayana Creatives. Kayana Creatives is a network of female entrepreneurs dedicated to collaboration and mutual support for business expansion.
Speaking at an award program honoring impactful women-led businesses, Okello highlighted the challenges women face in accessing finance due to traditional norms. “Lenders should stop only looking at land as collateral and should also consider inventory to lend to women-led businesses,” Okello said.
In many developing countries like Kenya, women’s access to financial services remains limited. Okello emphasized that access to credit can open up economic opportunities for women, with bank accounts serving as a gateway to additional financial services. According to the International Finance Corporation, enabling women-owned businesses to thrive by ensuring access to credit can drive progress on several Sustainable Development Goals, including eliminating poverty, reducing hunger, achieving good health and well-being, fostering quality education, and promoting gender equality.
The event celebrated the achievements of female entrepreneurs in the MSME sector, showcasing their innovation, resilience, and commitment to community impact. “These awards recognize small SMEs that don’t often have an opportunity to be celebrated. For instance, the 27 finalists were chosen from a pool of 340 applicants,” said Okello.
Currently, the program has supported over 900 women. With a financing gap of over $49 billion (Sh6.3 trillion) impacting women SMEs in Africa, the initiative aims to address barriers such as limited access to information, collateral requirements, cultural biases, complex business processes, and the disproportionate impact of climate change on women-led SMEs.
Advancing financial inclusion for Women-led or owned Small and Medium Enterprises (WSMEs) in Kenya is seen as a crucial step in driving sustainable development and economic empowerment for women in the region.