By Mujuni Mirembe
When Absa Bank Kenya—one of the country’s largest banks—wanted to include more women-owned businesses in their supply chain, they turned to IFC and its Sourcing2Equal Program.
Sourcing2Equal Kenya is a three-year project launched in 2021 and implemented by IFC with the support of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) and Norway to advance gender-inclusive sourcing in Kenya.
Sourcing2Equal Kenya supports the growth of Kenyan Women-led Small and Medium Enterprises (WSMEs) by increasing both their access to corporate procurement opportunities and by building the capacity of corporates to increase their procurement of goods and services from WSMEs. Under Sourcing2Equal Kenya, IFC has supported over 1,500 women entrepreneurs with capacity building activities, including procurement readiness training and matchmaking with large corporates. Corporates engaged in the program have awarded more than 150 procurement contacts to new women entrepreneurs.
In this interview, Fredrick Adungo, Absa Kenya’s Sustainability, ESG, Green Finance, Climate Risk & Reporting Manager, explains the importance of diversity to Absa Kenya and how working with IFC and other partners is helping them reach their inclusion goals and strengthen their operations.
Tell us a little about Absa Bank Kenya and your role
Absa Bank Kenya is part of Absa Group Limited and prides itself as a financially inclusive institution. We want to empower Africa’s tomorrow together, one story at a time. I have been with Absa for 13 years and for about four years in my current role.
Diversity and sustainability are important to Absa. When did you engage with IFC’s Sourcing2Equal Program to support these efforts?
Yes, diversity and sustainability are central to what we do at Absa. Our group-wide sustainability and ESG agenda is built on three pillars: diversity and inclusion, financial inclusion, and climate action. We established our 13 sustainability commitments in 2020, and one was to diversify our supply chain to include at least 30 percent women, youth and persons with disabilities (PWDs) by the end of 2025, following recent government guidelines. In 2021, IFC assessed where we were at with their Sourcing2Equal Diagnostic Tool, a supply chain assessment tool that identifies gaps and opportunities to increase procurement spend and contracts with women-owned businesses. IFC found that only six percent of our supplier base encompassed youth, women and PWDs, so we had some way to go to reach our goal. This is when we engaged with IFC’s Sourcing2Equal Kenya program.
What changes did Absa make following IFC’s assessment and how did Sourcing2Equal help?
Working with IFC, we developed a supplier diversity policy and standard that includes the special groups in our procurement process. Going forward, we aim to introduce a supplier webpage on our website to accelerate our supplier diversity target through capacity building and prequalification.
Sourcing2Equal helped us greatly with training and building the capacity of our suppliers. Buyer/supplier workshops focused on training, capacity building and networking have proved to be the best initiative to accelerate our supplier diversity. In 2022, we had supplier-buyer matchmaking events, and we also had in-house trainings in conjunction with Sourcing2Equal for our women owned businesses. Experts trained some of the women-run businesses in our supply chain and to date we have trained over 600 of our suppliers thanks to Sourcing2Equal.
What have the results been?
Following our 2020 diversification commitment, we allocated 15 percent of our supply chain to businesses majority owned by women, 10 percent to businesses majority owned by young people, and five percent to businesses majority owned by PWDs. We went from six percent of our supplier base focused on these groups to 10.3 percent in 2022 and then to 15.5 percent in 2023. As of December 2024, we were at 18 percent, a number that is still growing. Women-run businesses play an important role in our supply chain and operate in many sectors, including consulting, training, stationary supply, and debt collection.
Access to finance is a major barrier for women entrepreneurs. Have Absa’s procurement and banking businesses worked closely to help address that barrier?
Yes, we are buyers at the same time offer supply chain financing support to women, youth and PWDs. As a bank, we understand that access to finance is a major barrier to WSMEs in particular. To help address this, we have an internal WSME program, where we hold workshops and financial literacy training. We’ve trained more 50,000 WSMEs to date in Kenya. Our WSME team has communicated supply chain financing products available to WSMEs during those workshops. When I compare these businesses with those owned by men, there isn’t any difference. They are up to the task.
What are the lessons learned? Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
We realized that we couldn’t diversify our supplier base in isolation. Partnerships are key for us to achieve our goals. We need partners, including IFC, to support us with training and capacity building as well as helping identify suppliers from less-represented groups. The Sourcing2Equal program, and its partners, have been excellent in helping identify high-quality, women-run businesses. We’ve also realized that capacity building is imperative to ensure that we have a diverse supplier base. In terms of capacity building and training, buyer-supplier matchmaking, Sourcing2Equal helped us a lot in this journey. Implementing diversity and inclusion not only builds resilience but also positions an organization as an active force for good, impacting and transforming lives.
About Sourcing2Equal
Sourcing2Equal is an IFC-led global program launched in 2019 in partnership with the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) and the Government of Norway. The program seeks to connect thousands of women entrepreneurs to new market opportunities via corporate procurement. Two country projects are being implemented in Kenya and Colombia. Corporate buyers engaged in the program represent a substantial market with a procurement spending of over $11.4 billion.
About IFC We-Fi
The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) invests in programs that address barriers faced by women entrepreneurs, such as access to finance, markets, technology, and mentoring, while improving policy and regulatory frameworks. As a We-Fi Implementing Partner, IFC helps expand financial services and market access for women-owned businesses and enhances their capacity to grow. To learn more, visit https://www.ifc.org/we-fi and www.we-fi.org.