Rwandan women entrepreneurs will be among 4,000
people to benefit from a scheme set up by Millicom International Cellular,
(Tigo), to foster women entrepreneurship in the fast growing African mobile
financial services industry as well as enhancing household income.
The initiative,
which is a partnership between Tigo, Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) aims at supporting
and training the beneficiaries to set up businesses as Tigo Mobile Money agents
enhance financial inclusion.
Experts believe the
scheme that also targets women from Tanzania and Ghana, will help alleviate
poverty in Africa.
"This initiative enables our women agents to
access additional working capital to support more transactions on Tigo Cash
which means more people can be financially included," Tongai Muramba, head
of Tigocash at Tigo Rwanda told Business Times
Muramba added that
the partnership will also enable Tigo to recruit more women to become Tigo Cash
agents and thereby give them a chance to increase their incomes.
"For the Tigo
Cash business, this is a great way to increase the level of liquidity in our
agent network, even as we increase the size of the agent network," he
said.
"All these will
enable us to better serve our customers and build a microfinance institution
service that is the pride of Rwanda," he added.
The initiative will
be launched in the country next year with hope that many women will be able to
start businesses to boost their incomes.
"We welcome any
woman interested in participating in this programme," Muramba said.
Hans-Holger
Albrecht, Global President and CEO of Millicom said that the initiative will
deliver financial literacy and business development training for the women's
entrepreneurship to benefit all local communities.
"I am proud
that we at Millicom can be part of financial inclusion in Africa," he said
in a statement.
Experts are
optimistic that such initiatives will help the continent increase the level of
financial inclusion on the continent. Statistics indicate that sub-Saharan
Africa has the largest unbanked population.
The New Times of Rwanda