Addressing Investment Climate Barriers for Women through a Gender and Growth Assessment (GGA)

Beginning with a pilot of Gender and Growth Assessment (GGA) in Uganda, IFC has been working with local governments to address investment climate barriers for women and demonstrate the links between gender and economic growth. The successful GGA experience in Uganda has been replicated in Kenya, Ghana and Tanzania.

Women in African countries are entrepreneurial and make a significant contribution to the continent's economy. Women-owned businesses, however, tend to be smaller, have less revenue, and fewer employees. A variety of barriers in the legal and regulatory environment prevent them from accessing formal financing, growing their businesses, creating jobs, and making a greater contribution to economic growth. To address this issue, IFC's Gender Entrepreneurship Markets (GEM), in collaboration with the Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS) and the World Bank, developed a Gender and Growth Assessment (GGA) tool, which examines links between gender and economic growth, as well as legal and regulatory barriers that particularly impact women entrepreneurs. By collaborating with key stakeholders, the report develops a prioritized agenda for reform through a matrix of recommendations.

Uganda was the pilot country for the GGA tool, where a GGA was completed in May 2005 at the request of the Minister of Finance. Working closely with local counterparts in both government and civil society, the GEM/FIAS/World Bank team applied a "gender lens" to the FIAS 2003 Administrative Barriers report, and assessed business start-up, access to finance, access to land, taxation, customs, and access to justice. The GGA found that women are disproportionately affected by red tape and corruption. The GGA also found that the country could gain up to 2 percentage points of growth per year by addressing gender inequalities. The report built on the Ugandan government's commitment to further explore gender and growth linkages.

The GGA process required the team to engage with key country counterparts not only in identifying critical issues, but also in outlining actions and strategies for taking the recommendations forward. To build local capacity in Uganda, following the launch of the GGA the team held a two-day workshop on advocacy and public-private dialogue – key components needed to effectively implement the recommendations. During the workshop a GGA Coalition with representatives from seven women's organizations was formed to take the recommendations forward through lobbying and advocacy. The Coalition's members focused on thematic areas of the GGA according to their technical area of expertise. Even though legislative reform is a complex and time consuming process and intended impacts are expected to be observed over several years, the process has already resulted in some positive results, with a number of recommended reforms moving forward.

With access to formal financing being the key issue for women in a collateral-based banking system, IFC is extending a line of credit to a Ugandan bank to target women entrepreneurs, and GEM is designing accompanying training for businesswomen to support this intervention. The GGA was published in November 2005 as part of the World Bank's Directions in Development Series.

GEM has developed the GGA process as a tool for replication. The second GGA, undertaken in Kenya at the request of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, has been adopted as an integral part of Kenya's first Private Sector Development Strategy. The process is now also underway in Ghana and Tanzania, and consideration is being given to developing this instrument in Francophone Africa as well. A complementary advocacy tool, the Voices of Women Entrepreneurs report, showcases successful women entrepreneurs as role models.