The Gambia Women’s Finance Association (GAWFA) recently concluded a four-day capacity building training for their clients in Wassu village, Niani District, Central River Region (CRR) north. The training, which was conducted nationwide was funded by Rural Finance project and targeted 900 clients across the country.

Addressing participants, the chief executive officer (CEO) of GAWFA, Oley Njie-Mbye said GAWFA is an affiliate of the Women’s World Bank network headquartered in New York. She further said that the total membership of the association has increased to over 50,000 as at 31 December 2010 and the active borrowers have also increased to over 14, 780 as at 31 December 2010,  96.2% of whom are women.

According to her, GAWFA is empowering women entrepreneurs through micro-finance and also delivering services to its clients including capacity building through its partners and inter-related organisations. She thanked the team from Rural Finance Project for their diligence and support for making the training possible. “A  special thanks is also extended to the Ministry of Agriculture, GOTG and IFAD for their continuous support to GAWFA’s sustainability,” she added.

On their part, the Operation manager and Accountant of GAWFA, Kaddy Sanyang-Fofana and  Bakary Dibba respectively said the objective of the training was to enable their clients to perform product costing and run a simple income profit loss calculation. The training will also equip them with skills and knowledge on proper business record keeping, enhance their understanding of business methods, business sustainability, growth and profitability. They further explained that the training will enable group executives to better understand their roles and responsibilities for better group implementation, and as well enable participants to know the significance and role of micro-finance in improvement of their business.

The chief of Niani, Alhaji Pierre Bah commended GAWFA for their efforts in capacitating their clients, saying that this will go a long way towards improving their business. He spoke at length on the role GAWFA is playing in empowering women entrepreneurs through micro-finance, noting that this will complement government’s efforts in empowering Gambian women who are President Jammeh’s development priority. He also reminded participants that giving out loan is not a problem but timely loan repayment is the problem and the most important. He called on the participants to take the training seriously as it will equip them with the skills and knowledge on how to improve their business.

The GAWFA branch managers for North and South Banks of the country, Ebrima Ganno and Sankung Jaiteh respectively both emphasised the importance of capacity building, adding that this will help the beneficiaries in the improvement of their business. They urged participants to put into practice the skills and knowledge gained in the cause of the four-day training. They also called for attitudinal change towards timely loan repayment.