Fintech for women: a national strategy to support women in the agricultural cross-border trade

Context

The Ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration and Employment’s (MOTIE) role is to formulate, implement, and support policy measures that facilitate the creation of an efficient and effective environment for private sector-led development. Its responsibilities are to promote the development of domestic trade, enhance productive capacity development and ensure a sustained competitive business environment. MOTIE seeks to work on developing a national strategy for the development of a market for digital financial products and services specific for women engaged in the agricultural cross-border trade with the Gambia’s neighbouring country Senegal.

Objective

The ICR Facility’s technical assistance consisted of supporting MOITE in carry out a research study on how The Gambia can adopt and leverage fintech to enhance women’s access to finance to enable them to grow and sustain their businesses. This study focused on the agricultural sector, in particularly reflecting on the use of innovative digital financial services to expand women’s economic empowerment in the agricultural cross-border value chain and trade with Senegal.

Furthermore, it supported the MOITE drafting team in developing a national strategy to set up an enabling environment for the creation and development of products and services that can be delivered through fintech to expand women entrepreneurs’ options and choices in the agricultural value chains and cross-border trade. This document also includes a section on the key strategic capacity building opportunities related to the development of these products.

Results

This intervention has focused on identifying and addressing key gaps in the Gambia digital economy. Following a baseline study, together with MoTIE, a digital strategy has been developed to contribute to the digitalisation of the economy and supporting the country in leveraging Fintech. The intervention also highlighted an outstanding need for more collaboration and communication among the public and private sectors in order to achieve the national objective of moving to a “cash-lite economy”.

As a result of this intervention, MOTIE has now set up a work plan mirroring the strategy’s pillar in order to advance key action in the digital economy, with particular focus on women’s economic empowerment.

Research Study

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National Strategy: FinTech for Women Traders' Financial Inclusion

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This intervention took place under ICR Facility project, co-funded by the European Union (EU), the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) under the 11th European Development Fund (EDF), together with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the British Council. The ICR Facility was implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (German Development Cooperation, GIZ), the British Council, Expertise France, and Stichting Nederlandse Ontwikkelingsorganisatie (Netherlands Development Organisation, SNV).