GITEGA February 13th (ABP) – The Burundi Ombudsman Aimée Laurentine Kanyana visited on Thursday, February 9, 2023, the Women’s Investment and Development Bank (BIDF), located in Gitega (center of the country), to find out if the guidelines of the Head of State are being implemented and verifying whether that Bank is properly fulfilling its mission, a check on the site by ABP has revealed.
In her speech, Mrs. Kanyana commended the step that the women’s bank has already taken in a period of one year compared to other banks with greater seniority.
On that basis, she invited administrative officials and leaders at all levels to sensitize rural women on the development opportunities offered by BIDF to massively join that bank, taking into account that in Burundi, women are more numerous compared to men.
Taking the floor, the Chief Executive Officer (ADG) of the Bank for Investment and Development for Women, Mrs. Marie Salomé Ndabahariye praised that initiative. Thus, she admitted that the rural mass does not know that bank because it does not yet have branches in other parts of the country to be accessible to all women and that this constitutes a major challenge for the development of that bank.
CEO Ndabahariye also reminded the people present that this bank supports projects of women teamed up in cooperatives and associations by granting them loans at low interest. It also supports development projects capable of providing employment to several people, particularly in agriculture, livestock, fishing, industry, crafts, public transport, technology, to name but a few. It is for that reason that Mrs. Ndabahariye called on women to take out loans individually or in cooperatives in order to finance their projects.
The CEO of BIDF also pointed out that during this year of existence, that bank has already granted women a loan amounting to 2,358,292,328 BIF, while specifying that 47% of the amount was directed to the sector of agriculture, 41% in the trade sector, 11% to employees and 1% in the crafts sector.
Note that BIDF Bank started its activities on March 3, 2022 with a capital of 10 billion BIF financed by the government of Burundi (15%) and all the communes of the country (85%).