In Cote d’Ivoire, support to women entrepreneurs could generate at least six billion dollars, each year, or a 1/6 of the country’s GDP, according to the World Bank. This was reported by Reuters.

Ivory Coast is ranked by the United Nations 155th out of 159 countries in terms of gender equity. To change this, the country intends to, with a $9 million loan it took from Morocco, bridge gender equity gap by financing small and medium enterprises headed by women.

Ivorian women earn on average half of men’s revenues, according to the World Bank. This is mainly due to the fact that most of them are less educated than men, spending many hours a day cooking and taking care of their children. Also they do have less access to financing, equipment and commercial networks, the Bretton Woods institution explained.

In Ivory Coast, only 33% of women are literate, compared to 53% of men, a gap that widened since the 1980s, according to the Bank.

Fiacre E. Kakpo