Gender Ministry Wants Fair Financial Policy Programs for Women; Holds Dialogue with Stakeholders
By: Lazota Bility
bilitylazota9@gmail.com
Liberia: The Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection is calling for a Fair Financial Policy for Women in Liberia.
In championing the call, the Ministry and its partners held a daylong stakeholder’s dialogue on Financial inclusion program and policies with focus on women. The engagement was to brainstorm about policies to enhance the women of Liberia access to Financial resources.
The stakeholders dialogue brought together government officials, civil society representatives, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), private sector entities, financial institutions, and international partners.
Speaking at the dialogue, the Deputy Minister of Gender, Children, Social Protection Atty. Laura Golakeh indicated that women are lacking access to finance, which is denying women’s empowerment.
According to Min. Golakeh, when the women have access to the needed resources, they will be productive and contribute to Liberia’s development.
“It is important to initiate conversations about how women in the rural areas can be economically empowered to start their businesses, considering the issues of gender gaps in the markets sector and limited access to financial services within the rural areas, Minister Golakeh added.
She stressed the need for the disbursement of micro financial loans to empower Liberian women.
“As we observed majority of Liberians don’t have bank accounts and they also lack access to information so having access to loans have been a key issues, these are the reasons bankers are afraid to give out loans. We need to have regular discussions with these people and Teach ” she said..
The Deputy Gender Minister at the same time empathized the importance of women financial inclusion in achieving sustainable development goals particularly relating to gender issues.
For her part, the president of the Rural Women, Madam Kebbeh Monger called on the Liberian government to provide assistance to women in rural areas by building their skills in Agriculture.
” I want to say thank you for this great Dialogue but we the rural women don’t need just empowerment, we want to be empowered with skills mostly Agriculture to maintain whatever loans we receive from partners and add value to our empowerment ” She narrated.
Madam Monger also wants partners to help create agricultural farms in districts across the country.
Meanwhile, the Executive Director of the Women NGO Secretariat of LIberia (WONGOSOL), Madam Esther David Yango called on Partners to reduce the high requirements attached to Grants and Loan giving to organizations, especially women-led organization.
“We as an organization are struggling to stand alone, we sometimes use our finances to carry out work because whenever partners put out applications for Grants the requirements are very hard mostly for women’s organizations, we apply but we have not selected this need to stop what becomes of Organization that is just coming into existence? ” Madam Yango added.
