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| A trader in Lekki, Lagos, photographed in November 2017. File photograph. Oritsetsemaye Jemide / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. |
Dalberg Advisors associate partner Chimdi Onwudiegwu has urged African financial institutions to review how they identify, assess and finance women entrepreneurs, saying greater female representation in investment decisions must translate into access to capital.
Speaking to Arise News’ Global Business Report at the Africa Financial Summit in Luanda, Angola, she identified collateral requirements, investment practices and limited influence within decision-making bodies as obstacles that institutions needed to address.
The summit took place on 3 and 4 November, with discussions centred on directing African capital towards productive businesses and economic growth.
Onwudiegwu said the financing gap required attention throughout the investment process, from finding prospective businesses to assessing applications and supporting expansion. Increasing the number of women on committees, she argued, did not automatically resolve weaknesses elsewhere in that process.
Her comments followed a summit workshop examining the gap between women’s representation among capital allocators and the funding reaching female founders.
Research published by the African Private Capital Association in January found that women accounted for 33% of investment committee members across its surveyed firms. The study covered 218 investors operating in areas including private equity, venture capital and infrastructure.
Separately, Africa: The Big Deal’s review of 2025 funding showed that solo women founders and founding teams consisting entirely of women received less than 1% of the capital raised by African startups. Mixed-gender founding teams secured about 8%, while solo male founders and all-male teams received approximately 91%.
Onwudiegwu said institutions needed to consider whether women serving on boards and investment committees could meaningfully influence decisions. She also called for accountability within institutions so that financing women-owned businesses remained a priority beyond discussions about representation.
“One of the key things is ensuring that the financial system is working for women.”
She identified access to property titles as one example of how conventional lending requirements could disadvantage women entrepreneurs.
A woman might share ownership of family land without appearing on its title, she said. Where a lender required documented property ownership as security, that omission could affect her ability to obtain business finance.
Onwudiegwu therefore urged financial institutions to examine both their collateral demands and the methods they used to assess risk. Her argument was that lenders needed to understand the circumstances in which women operated their businesses when deciding whether and how to provide finance.
She also cautioned against treating women-owned enterprises as a single category with identical requirements.
A small trader or other microenterprise, she said, would need a different financing approach from a business seeking venture capital to support rapid expansion. Financial products should reflect the enterprise’s size, development stage and prospects.
That distinction extended to businesses operating informally. Onwudiegwu called for financing that met entrepreneurs at their current stage while supporting their transition towards formal business structures over time.
She placed those concerns within the summit’s wider discussion about mobilising capital already held in Africa.
The continent had resources that could support businesses, she argued, but the challenge was ensuring that money reached activities capable of sustaining the real economy. She said attention should extend beyond securing funds from outside Africa to making better use of domestic capital.
Onwudiegwu called for conditions that encouraged investment in businesses rather than leaving available resources concentrated in treasury bills and bonds.
“The thing is about making the real economy work, right?”
She linked that objective to the financing needs of businesses of different sizes, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. In her assessment, mobilising capital would have limited value if firms could not obtain the support needed to operate and grow.
The International Finance Corporation, which co-hosted the summit with Jeune Afrique Media Group, similarly framed the meeting around expanding private investment, financing productive sectors and turning African savings into investment within the continent.
Asked about the pipeline of women entrepreneurs, Onwudiegwu said she was encouraged by the range of businesses she encountered across African markets.
She pointed to Nigeria as an example of widespread entrepreneurial activity among women, while noting that many of their businesses remained microenterprises. She said the scale of that activity demonstrated the importance of developing financing approaches suited to smaller firms.
Her examples included women working in the creative industries, services and financial businesses, alongside entrepreneurs processing agricultural products and selling beyond their domestic markets.
She said women were already building businesses and pursuing opportunities across these sectors. The question for institutions was how to reach them, understand their requirements and provide appropriate support.
Describing Dalberg’s work, Onwudiegwu said the advisory firm worked with businesses and development partners across areas including agriculture, health, financial inclusion and gender.
She maintained that women entrepreneurs needed both participation in financial decisions and practical benefits from that participation, stressing the importance of ensuring that “the voice comes with value as well”.