DAR ES SALAAM, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian Vice-President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Tuesday the east African nation was implementing a number of bold initiatives aimed at addressing issues pertaining to empowerment of poor women.
She said the initiatives were aimed at enhancing the degree of financial inclusion among poor women, especially those marginalized in geographically remote rural areas.
Opening the Women's World Day Banking Global Summit in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, the Vice-President said Tanzania opened a women's bank in 2009 to empower women economically and socially.
She said the bank was aimed at addressing a range of problems and challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in accessing loans in various banking and financial institutions due to a range of reasons, including high interest rates, lack of collateral and unavailability of financial services in rural areas.
"Our policies recognize the importance of enabling the marginalized groups and households for a better life," Suluhu told the two-day summit that has attracted over 300 delegates from across the world.
For instance, said the Vice-President, the Tanzania Development Vision 2025 aims at achieving a high quality livelihood for its people by targeting different goals such as gender equality and the empowerment of women in all sectors.
Suluhu said the summit came at an opportune moment despite all the tireless efforts by various world actors to spearhead and propagate financial inclusion agenda to alleviate poverty still there was minimal trickle-down effect for the underprivileged and marginalized groups of women.
"We live in the world where only 50 percent of women of working age are in the labor force compared to 77 percent of men,"she said.
She added: "The gender wage gap is at 24 percent, with women of color and women with children earning even less. Some 42 percent of women and girls worldwide remain outside the formal financial system."
"However, let these statistics not thwart your efforts because we also know that if women participate equally in the economy as men, the global GDP can increase by a mammoth 12 trillion U.S. dollars by 2025," said the Vice-President.
