AFAWA Strategy for Women Entrepreneurs in Rwanda: Mobilizing USD 75 Million by 2029

Rwanda's Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF), in partnership with UN Women and the African Development Bank's Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative, has launched a landmark national strategy to mobilize USD 75 million in financing for women entrepreneurs by 2029. Grounded in Rwanda's Vision 2050 and the National Strategy for Transformation (NST-2), the strategy targets women-led businesses across six high-growth sectors: Agriculture, Clean Energy, ICT, Trade, Manufacturing, and Housing with a deliberate focus on reaching rural and underserved women in every district of the country.

The strategy is built on three mutually reinforcing pillars: expanding access to finance through a Risk-Sharing Facility that lowers collateral barriers for women borrowers; strengthening business capacity through an Empowerment Suite covering investment readiness, legal support, market linkages, and confidence building; and driving policy reform led by MIGEPROF, MINECOFIN, and the National Bank of Rwanda to create a gender-responsive financial and regulatory environment. Implementation is supported by the Private Sector Federation's Women's Cluster as a grassroots mobilization bridge, with impact tracked through sex-disaggregated data across enterprise sizes. The strategy calls on financial institutions, the private sector, and development partners to align as active partners in advancing the Rwandan woman entrepreneur as a primary engine of inclusive national prosperity.