| Gambia
Women’s Finance Association (GAWFA) was established in 1987. It aims to build a
viable and sustainable women's organisation serving as a financial intermediary to enhance
the entrepreneurship development of low income women as a means of eradicating their
poverty and increasing their participation in the socioeconomic development of The Gambia. GAWFA is a member of Women’s World
Banking (WWB) and The Association of NGOs (TANGO).
1. GAWFA mainly works with:-
F low income individual
women who wish to start a business or are already in business;
F village-based women’s
groups engaged in income generating activities.
2. GAWFA provides:-
F a voluntary savings
programme that is open to everybody - women, men, youths, groups, corporate bodies,
regardless of occupation or income level;
F an integrated savings and
credit programme which is meant for GAWFA members - low income women (individuals and
groups);
F business advice for GAWFA
members;
F advocacy on gender and
policies and practices pertaining to micro finance and micro/small scale enterprises;
F support for women’s
kafos to access assistance from other development partners for milling machines,
construction of wells and marketplaces, etc.
3. GAWFA provides loans for:-
- agricultural activities such as poultry raising, sheep fattening, vegetable gardening
and others;
- petty trading, wholesale and retail of all goods
- soap making, tie dyeing, dressmaking, food processing and others;
- buying milling machines, sewing machines, refrigerators, farming tools, seednuts and
fertiliser;
- market vendors, shopkeepers, farmers, dressmakers, handicraft producers and others;
- individual women, groups and Savings and Credit Associations (SACAs).
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