2027 Budget must clarify Women’s Development Bank – Economist

Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana’s Department of Economics, Dr Gloria Afful-Mensah, has called on government to provide clear details on the proposed Women’s Development Bank in the 2027 National Budget.

She said the budget should explain how the bank will operate, its mandate and how it will work with existing financial institutions and programmes supporting women-owned businesses.

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Speaking to journalists at the NETRIGHT Public Forum on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, she said the lack of an update on the initiative in the 2026 mid-year fiscal policy review was worrying.

“It is important that in the 2027 budget we get a more detailed update on where we are with regard to the Women’s Development Bank. It is only when you get to know the specifics with the Women’s Development Bank that we can learn from the failure of some of these initiatives to be able to correct them,” she said.

The proposed bank is expected to provide low-interest loans and other financial services to women-owned and women-led businesses, with the broader aim of economically empowering at least one million Ghanaian women.

The government also announced that it has applied to the Bank of Ghana for a licence to establish the bank.

However, Dr Afful-Mensah has warned against duplicating services already provided by commercial banks through their gender-focused desks and programmes.

“You also don’t want to see duplicity in terms of what the various gender desks in the banks are doing and what the Women’s Development Bank is intended to do. So we hope that the specifics will come out quite clearly in the 2027 budget so that we can build on to promote women’s economic development,” she added.

According to her, although Ghana recorded about 6.8% growth in the first quarter of 2026, some sectors driving the growth, particularly parts of agriculture, have limited participation from women.

She noted that many women in agriculture are mainly involved in food crop production, while growth in areas such as cocoa, forestry and logging could benefit men more.

“If we have growth in the agricultural sector that is propelled by male-dominated subsectors, it means that certain people are left behind, and so it is important that we look at the drivers of growth from a gender perspective,” she stressed.

Dr Afful-Mensah also urged government to consider women’s unpaid care and domestic responsibilities in implementing the 24-hour economy model market initiative. She said the policy should create opportunities for women without adding to their existing workload.

“If you have a 24-hour market, if a woman is supposed to be there, what happens to the care work, the unpaid care work or domestic work? The model market is supposed to incorporate issues that concern not just the economic activities of women, but also the unpaid care and domestic activities of women, so that they’ll be able to combine them efficiently,” she stated.

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