Nairobi — Comesa First ladies round table conference opened yesterday in Nairobi amid calls for increased financial allocation to empower women in the region.

The one-day conference heard that women stood a better chance of benefiting from the funds as they would set up their own income generating enterprises, thereby reducing their reliance on "gifts and handouts" for survival.

Zambian First Lady Maureen Mwanawasa, however, said most women were still being denied loans by banks as they simply did not have collateral.

And, in the case where the banks gave the women loans, they were charged very exorbitant interest rates, thereby making them poorer, Mrs Mwanawasa said.

"Lack of collateral should not be used as an excuse to deny women loans and credit facilities. In fact, these banks should instead allocate more funds to them in order to be self reliant," said the Zambian First Lady, amid applause.

A clear message

She went on: "We should not use unconventional means of denying women their rights. We should indeed be fair to all people because everyday is not yesterday. You may have something today and not have it tomorrow."

Her sentiments were echoed by Kenya's First Lady Lucy Kibaki, who said that despite the endorsement of the Comesa gender policy by Heads of State in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2002, gender disparities continued to exist in all the member countries.

Mrs Kibaki said the disparities must indeed be addressed speedily if the agenda of deepening integration for diversification and value addition, was to succeed.

"As the 12 Heads of State summit gets underway, it is my conviction that this round table will send a clear message that there was need to speed up the implementation of this policy, which aims at empowering women," she said.

"Our quest of empowering women shall forever remain elusive so long as women have inadequate access to credit and relevant skills. I therefore appeal to governments of Comesa countries to implement policies that will enable women have access to these very important necessities," Mrs Kibaki added.