The Kenyan government through the State Department for Gender and Affirmative
Action and ImpactHER; Africa’s foremost NGO committed to empowering women
entrepreneurs, African Union and ALX have pledged to accelerate action for Kenyan
female entrepreneurs to help them maximise their potentials, add value to the
economy and achieve business growth.
This pledge was made known at the ImpactHER’s 2025 Female Business Owners
conference which was held at The Piano, Nairobi, Kenya in partnership with the
African Union and ALX.
During her keynote speech, Jackline Makokha, Director, Gender, State Department
for Gender and Affirmative Action noted that Kenyan female entrepreneurs are
facing a lot of hurdles which have kept them from achieving business growth. In her
words, “I want to urge Kenyan female entrepreneurs to step out more and offer
themselves to getting into the murky waters of business. They should not limit
themselves to SMEs alone but also aim for large business ideas as this will help
them get empowered. The majority of the barriers facing our women are systemic.
The policy framework of the various financial institutions is not favourable for women.
For instance, what is required for Kenyan women to access financing is very
limiting”.
“If a woman wants to take a loan for business, they would be needing collateral and
in Kenya, collateral is measured in terms of assets such as land, which is not too
accessible to women. When you look at the land ownership statistics in our country,
not so many women own assets such as land in their own names. So, in terms of
collaterals and other assets, our women struggle. This is why we are working with
relevant stakeholders to see how to help these women scale at large”, she said.
Speaking at the event, ImpactHER’s representative, explained that the NGO is
working with female entrepreneurs to help them scale despite the various challenges
prevalent in Africa. “ImpactHER’s services are inclusive to all women entrepreneurs,
focusing on their needs to grow scalable businesses. We have continued to partner
with relevant institutions to offer our services to the women, including digital
transformation, access to financing and other resources to grow their businesses”,
she said.
Other resource persons from top institutions like Deloitte who spoke at the
conference urged the women to adopt digital skills especially AI and data to help
them grow their business and scale appropriately.
About ImpactHER
ImpactHER, was established to help address gender inequality and close the
gender-based small and medium sized enterprise financing gap. ImpactHER is an
award-winning not-for-profit organization awarded by the African Union as the Best
Women SME (small and medium sized enterprises) Support Organization in Africa
we empower African female entrepreneurs by bridging the gender business financing
gap so as to help them realize their full economic potential. We help African women-
owned businesses grow to scale by educating these entrepreneurs on how to: (i)
build sustainable and scalable best-in-class businesses (ii) overcome operational
challenges as they expand their businesses (iii) become investor-ready, and (iv) gain
access to institutional investors. ImpactHER’s goal is to prepare African female
entrepreneurs to become pacesetters and market leaders.
