Dr. Jennifer Riria was moved to tears – and not tears of joy – listening to the roundtable of African presidents at the annual U.S. Africa Business Summit, held this year in Washington, DC. The next day, at a plenary on women and economic development, Riria, CEO of Kenya Women Finance Trust, lamented that the presidents of Congo (Brazzaville), Ghana, Rwanda and Sao Tome and Principe, while discussing agriculture and food security issues, had made not a single mention of Africa's women. The status of women in a society, Riria said in a fiery call to action for women's empowerment, is a barometer of the health of the society. The Corporate Council on Africa, the leading association of American companies engaged in Africa and Summit host, honored Riria with the 2009 Business Excellence Award for Financing. Excerpts from her prepared remarks at the Corporate Council on Africa's 2009 Summit:
The African woman is a neglected and ignored economic force. A society, a political system or an approach that relegates women at the bottom will never achieve the millennium development goals. The position of women is a barometer of the condition of society.
This is why Kenya Women Finance Trust as a microfinance institution has a pivotal role in ensuring that the potential of women is enhanced. KWFT exists to advance and promote the direct participation of economically active women in viable businesses to improve their economic and social status, by providing sustainable financial and non-financial needs to women in the economy.
KWFT's services target women as the entry point, transforming the way her world works and that of her family. KWFT operates from the premise that "Poverty Disempowers". This disempowerment demonstrates itself in the way women are perceived, placed and treated by the society and in the society.
There is need to arrange the world differently to enable women to access equally the wealth that they have participated in creating, to have control over the fruits of their labour and to become part and parcel of the decision making process in their world.
