Revisiting the “Back to the Future” discourse on alternative finance for “Informality” in Africa
In my article “Back to the future gender ethnicity the informal finance options — Any lessons from the annual “August meetings” of Igbo women?” I referred to a previous article entitled “Micro-credit for microenterprises? A study of women “petty” traders in Eastern Nigeria,” where I highlighted the bottlenecks prompting the resort to alternative finance arrangements for startup funding especially for what has been deemed “low-value” projects/ businesses.
The purpose was to examine the factors that constrain women petty traders’ access to microcredit, and to highlight the ‘arguably’ innovative measures these women had initiated in order to counter these constraints.
Based on in-depth interviews with women micro-entrepreneurs drawn from a convenience sample of 20 petty [Women] traders in the market town of Awka — the capital of a state in Eastern Nigeria, the study identified three main constraints — internal, socio-cultural and policy induced — as being the key moderating influences on women petty traders’ ability access to micro-credit.
In broad terms, we posited that the lack of access to credit tended to perpetuate market exclusion, and deepen the socioeconomic and political vulnerability of women as a consequence. Such vulnerability has prompted these microentrepreneurs into venturing into alternative sources of credit in the form of “Women August Meetings”.
There are implications for funders — from business angels to venture capitalists. The narrative is the same anywhere in Africa, be it Nigeria, Uganda or even Rwanda.
