In the current world the efforts to bridge the gender gap across sectors have taken many different forms through several initiatives, some more successful than others, however very few focus specifically on what truly makes it harder for women to thrive: financial independence.
This term can take different meanings and trigger different reactions depending on the geographical location.
In the West financial independence is having a job, being able to have your bank account and managing your expenses, even if they don’t necessarily cover your lifestyle fully (the gender pay gap still has a long way to go), but in developing countries, and remote rural areas, financial independence can be an offense, or an attempt to prevail on men, subverting the fragile balance that has seen women fully dependant on their spouses or the man of the family from generations.
I met Solape Akinpelu just over a year ago and from our first conversation and before knowing anything about her, I knew this woman was a force of nature.
Solape, whose full name Omosolape loosely translates as “with this child, I am complete”, carries within her DNA the mission to empower African women in rural areas through financial visibility.
In 2020 almost 21, right in the middle of the world’s worst moment to start any business, with the COVID pandemic upon us, she decided to fund Hervest, a social enterprise that serves women in rural Nigeria and helps them access banking and credit to support their harvest.
She said “ I have a knack for solving very complex problems and finding solutions” and this one may be exactly that, a very complex problem that she is determined to solve.
Women in rural areas are mostly invisible to the banking system, with limited or no access to mobile services or the Internet, these women are dependent on their families and cannot plan effectively for their future. Even those who have some savings are often one medical emergency away from being back in the dire side of life.
Something as simple as a credit line can expand their capacity to buy crops, plan the sale differently, and access better markets and better rates.
Credit lines for farmers is not an exceptionally new idea, but credit line for women farmers, who have never accessed a banking system before, it’s probably a scary point of no return toward necessary progress for rural communities.
Hervest’s work starts in the fields where Solape and her staff walk in groups with the women of that specific community, often followed by the men who are not fully trustful of what is happening, and together as they walk, they talk and get to know the problem and the benefit that the solution would bring not just to the single woman but to everyone in return.
Not your standard experience towards opening a bank account, but a necessity, that the peer-to-peer work must accommodate to educate first, build trust and accountability, and ensure that everyone is taken by hand to the finish line.
This is really hard work and it’s more than just work.
Currently serving 10,000 women in rural communities, Solape’s journey is just at the very beginning. “We have 80,000 women waiting to be supported as soon as we can attend to them” but the scope of the project is way bigger than that.
The only limitation is given by lack of funds, necessary to establish long-term support for Hervest to grow, become self-reliant, and profitable while impacting.
Patient capital, support funds, equity, Solape is open to all forms of help so long as she gets to grow her efforts in line with the demand and needs of the local market.
The journey with Hervest is a tipping point of extensive research into what wealth means for African women. Her determination to alter the status quo, to empower and to engage every woman in embracing financial literacy led her to author a book “Stripped: An African woman’s guide to building generational wealth”.
The book is a starting guide to taking financial responsibility to build a wealthy present and create enough wealth for the next generation.
When I asked her what made her write this book she said: “Girls are taught to sit properly, to be pretty, and to attract a good man so that they may be looked after. There is nothing wrong with being looked after, but it should not be the only option, because when that doesn’t work out, what happens to that woman?” she continued.
“Women are not used to getting together and talking about investments or money, in a conversation about finance you lose the women very quickly as soon as you start introducing some specific terminology, we need to change that”.
This financial literacy gap is not just a problem in Africa or developing countries, in the West most women also are shy and avoid engaging in those conversations in group dynamics, there are further deeper tabus that surround “money shame” as many were taught growing up that “talking about money is not proper”.
What we can all agree now is that is not proper for a woman anywhere to not be able to access credit lines the same way a man can, we need to change that not just for Africa but for every woman on this planet.
Check our podcast for our deep and honest conversation and remember that the simple act of sharing may reach someone able to help.
