An ambitious new initiative aimed at empowering African women traders was officially launched in Accra, Ghana, on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. The CAD$19.7 million “Making Trade Work for Women in West Africa” (MTW) project seeks to strengthen the capacity of women in cross-border trade across six countries—Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, and Nigeria.
Speaking at the colorful launch event, H.E. Hailemariam Dessalegn, Board Chair of TradeMark Africa and former Prime Minister of Ethiopia, emphasized the urgent need to address structural barriers that hinder women’s participation in trade. “Women constitute a significant portion of our workforce, yet systemic barriers continue to prevent them from fully engaging in trade,” he said. “This project will directly support 80,000 traders, 70% of whom are women, across six countries.”
Also addressing the gathering, Myriam Montrat, representing the Government of Canada, reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to advancing gender equality in Africa’s trade landscape. “Women’s empowerment is a top priority for Canada. When women thrive, communities thrive, countries thrive, and societies as a whole prosper,” she noted.
The MTW project is designed to tackle persistent challenges faced by women traders, including limited access to finance, reduced earnings, excessive bureaucracy, and harassment at border crossings. According to a World Bank study conducted along the Tema–Ouagadougou and Abidjan–Lagos corridors, women make up 38% and 61% of traders respectively, yet they earn 30% to 50% less than their male counterparts for the same volume of trade.
The project, to be jointly implemented by the Centre for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI) and TradeMark Africa (TMA) through 2030, will focus on the integration of digital tools, delivery of financial literacy programs, and advocacy for gender-responsive trade policies—all aimed at fostering a more inclusive and equitable trading environment across the region.
