Financing Tanzania's "Super Women"
Grace Patrick Kimaro is a Super Woman.
The Tanzanian entrepreneur runs seven phone accessory outlets in the country, supplying chargers, cables, and protective covers, among other items. Thanks to funding she received from a groundbreaking gender bond NMB Bank issued in 2022, she has grown her business and today employs 19 people.
"Grace is one of our clients and one of the beneficiaries of various products we are offering that we call super women because of the Jasiri element that we have embedded, which translates to ‘a woman who can run her own business and become successful…is a success story to the community,’” says Alex Mgeni, Head of Business Banking at NMB Bank in Tanzania.
NMB’s Jasiri Bond—the first gender bond issued in sub-Saharan Africa—represents a new and growing field of finance that is increasing funding for women-owned businesses. It also supports a wider strategy of Tanzania’s government to advance gender equality and bring more women into the country’s private sector.
For Kimaro, a mother of four whose business ambitions were limited only by the amount of financing she could access, the bond has been a game-changer: In Tanzania, 75 percent of women-owned businesses report that they lack access to the financing they need.
“The funding from NMB has enabled me to progress. I’ve had many achievements and been able to pay for my children’s education thanks to running my own business.”
Why gender bonds?
Gender bonds are designed to support the advancement, empowerment, and equality of women in business. Financing raised from these bonds must go towards these objectives.
Since 2013, roughly 80 gender bonds have been issued globally that align with the Social Bond Principles or Sustainability-linked Bond Principles, and more institutions are looking at debt instruments as a source to raise funding to advance gender equality.
“When more women have access to financing and business tools, they become even more powerful engines of growth, job creation and innovation.”
IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, subscribed to 31 percent of NMB’s bond, equivalent to about $10 million in Tanzanian shillings. IFC's investment in the bond is supported by the International Development Association's (IDA) Private Sector Window Local Currency Facility.
Alex Mgeni, Head of Business Banking, NMB Bank.
Alex Mgeni, Head of Business Banking, NMB Bank.
NMB’s gender bond will finance more than 2,000 women-owned small and medium-sized businesses in Tanzania, like Kimaro’s, with loan sizes ranging from TZS 1 million to TZS 4.5 billion (about $400 to $1.8 million) .
Bridging gender gaps
IFC’s investment in NMB’s gender bond is part of its broader work in Tanzania helping bridge gender gaps and championing women in the private sector.
In addition to supporting NMB’s gender bond, IFC launched the wide-ranging Anaweza: She Can program in June 2023 that is working with partners to bring more women into the private sector. The She Can program will build on the success of IFC’s Finance2Equal initiative which worked with the financial sector to increase the number of women in leadership roles in Tanzania’s financial sector.
Published in October 2023