The federal government spends millions to help small Ethiopian businesses “led by women” to find funding, and the program is far from giving the expected results.
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The project is called accelerating the growth of female entrepreneurship, and Ottawa, which has already devoted $ 6 million to it since 2022, plans to put $ 7.5 million in the next three years.
With these sums, the government hopes to attract $ 81 million in private investments in SMEs in Ethiopia which are “concerned with equality between men and women”.
For the time being, however, we are removing far from this pantagruelic objective. According to World Affairs Canada, total capital mobilized by the program today reaches $ 4.1 million, or 5% of the target.
Far from the account
To put things differently, this represents a return of 66 cents per invested dollar, while the target is $ 6 per invested dollar.
“Despite the progress made to date, the investment climate and the regulatory environment in Ethiopia continue to pose challenges that hinder capital flows to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs),” said World Affairs Spokesman Canada, Louis-Carl Brissette-lesage.
“The program remains faithful to its long-term vision which consists in strengthening the autonomy of women entrepreneurs and stimulating economic growth in Ethiopia,” he added, assuring that efforts are made to accelerate “capital deployment”.
Despite our questions, Ottawa has not specified the number of Ethiopian companies having so far benefited from investments caused by its project.
Create jobs at the other end of the world
The Federal also maintains that the project has made it possible to create around 4,560 jobs in Ethiopia in the past two years, bringing to 1213 the total number of women employed since the launch of the project.
“An important part of SMEs in Ethiopia are directed or held by women, even if challenges such as access to financing and under-representation of women in management positions persist,” said Brissette-lesage.
“The initiatives underway within the framework of the project aim to strengthen these companies by offering them targeted training, legal and financial advice and links with investors,” he concluded.
