The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Société Générale on Wednesday, June 26, 2024, signed a 25 million dollar loan facility agreement designed to create new opportunities for women-led Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Ghana.
The partnership is integral to IFC’s Base of the Pyramid Platform—a $1 billion global financing facility aimed at delivering critical funding to small businesses, informal enterprises, and low-income households, with particular interest in women, that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent macroeconomic challenges.
Speaking to Channel One News on the sidelines of the IFC Agreement Signing Ceremony, the Senior Country Manager of IFC, Kyle Kelhofer mentioned that this new transaction builds on IFC’s existing relationship with Société Générale to strengthen their collaboration and accelerate support for sustainable finance with a focus on empowering women entrepreneurs and SMEs.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of Société Générale, Hakim Ouzzani, stated that the partnership will promote gender equality and address the imbalances that exist in the business sector.
“This is a continuation of an existing partnership dating to 2020 where we provided financing to Société Générale to support SMEs in general but women in enterprises in particular.
“So this is a continued expansion of a 25 million dollar loan for SMEs primarily women. Société Générale is a specific programme which aims to strengthen and this is part of supporting the Ghanaian banking sector as part of increasing resilient recovery of by the banking sectors.”
“I said just a few minutes ago that we will have this particular focus on the businesses which are owned by women for gender equality and balance. We have already, many weeks ago, we had a very strong focus on the businesses which are owned by women.
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