RBZ wants more financial inclusion for women

Published: 26 March 2018

THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has called on women nationwide to embrace the financial inclusion programme to foster economic development in the country.

Financial inclusion is meant to empower more people including marginalised groups to participate in the country's financial services.

The marginalised groups include informal traders, women and youths.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Women Entrepreneurs Development Trust (WEDT) training programme here recently, RBZ Deputy Governor Dr Jesimeni Chipika said women were game changers in the economy globally and nationwide.

She said their classification as being poor, should be discarded as the country moves forward with the central bank adopting initiatives aimed at bringing about a sustainable economic development.

"Women as we know have been entrepreneurs their whole lives but when you talk to most of them, it was not capital or the finance which was lacking but there were totally delinked from formal finance in this country," Dr Chipika.

She said there was a need to continue improving access to financial services especially in small towns and rural areas to enable all to participate in the economic growth.

"The funds, which were there in the past as either Government grants or donor funds are short term but what is needed is sustainable financing.

"In some countries they establish whole huge banks to run development financing. We are aware of the problems of access and the new thrust is to continuously interact with the implementers and beneficiaries on the ground.

"We are revising the access modalities to make sure ordinary people access funds as designed," said Dr Chipika.

She said Zimbabwe's economy is poised for growth under the new political dispensation.

"All the women and everyone who would be reached by this information should use it. If we miss this development we have only ourselves to blame. Let's go for it as it will solve a lot of financial problems and it should be history for us," said the Deputy Governor.

She said with women at the forefront, there are bound to be good investors as shown by the role they play in the society by taking care of the health, education and caring for their children who are the future generation. The event was organised by Homelink Financial Services.
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