MORE WOMEN TO BENEFIT FROM RURAL WOMEN ANTI-POVERTY PROJECT
Rural poverty in Ghana has been identified to continue to be one of the major socioeconomic problems besetting the Ghanaian economy and the need for pragmatic measures to be put in place to target the rural poor has been underscored.
In order to help reduce rural poor especially among women, Global Media Foundation, a human rights and anti-corruption media advocacy foundation has initiated a project dubbed “Rural Women Anti-poverty Project” which aims at empowering rural microbusiness operators to expand their businesses in order to reduce poverty among rural women.
The Gender and Youth Development Co-ordinator of Global Media Foundation (GLOMEF), Lovelace Eyraim Kpogo who was speaking with newsmen said the foundation since May this year has disbursed more than ten thousand Ghana Cedis to about 15 women in the Sunyani West District and Sunyani Municipality in the Brong-Ahafo region, saying the project is expected to covered 50 more women before the end of this year.
Miss Kpogo said this when she was interacting with some of the beneficiaries of the Scheme in Sunyani. She revealed that from next year the project will be expanded to more Districts in Brong-Ahafo, Ashanti and Northern regions targeting more than one thousand women.
The project she noted also has a component of training about 500 young rural women on marketable skills such soap and pomade production, bees making, batik as well as tie and dye and training in business management annually.
She attributed the problems of unemployment and underemployment in Ghana to lack of access to financial services, in particular credit, which would allow microbusiness operations to increase their incomes and generate employment. According to her, the main sources of credit to the poor have traditionally been informal lenders, and investment lenders, which, respectively, charge more than 50 percent interest.
She noted that the poor have not been served by the private banking sector because lending to them in a conventional way entails a high transaction cost and is perceived as high risk with little potential reward.
She said under the project a loan facility known as Women Empowerment Loan Scheme has been established. When asked whether the beneficiaries are paying the loan as agreed, Miss Kpogo said so far the beneficiaries are doing well and commended them for their paying ability. One of the beneficiaries, Mavis Pokuaa was full of praise to the GLOMEF for the support, adding it has helped to expand her business. According to Mrs Pokuaa, the condition attached to the loan is flexible and its low interest rate makes the payment very easy. She therefore appealed to her fellow women who are looking for soft loans to contact the foundation.