Promoting the economic empowerment of Ivorian women

What role does the Confédération Générale des Entreprises de Côte d’Ivoire (CGECI) play in the Ivorian private sector?

The CGECI represents nearly 80% of the private sector and brings together professional groups, business associations, and companies from all sectors of activity (industry, services, agriculture, and trade), accounting for nearly 22,000 billion CFA francs and more than 400,000 jobs. We therefore play a key role in representing Ivorian businesses, advocating for their interests to improve their competitiveness and foster their growth. The Confederation is also a leading partner in discussions with trade union representatives and plays a major role in social dialogue. We also engage in advocacy to promote public-private dialogue, in order to strengthen the interaction between these sectors and create a more business-friendly environment.

What has the Investment Climate Reform (ICR) Facility, which works to improve the business climate, enabled the Confederation to achieve?

Within the CGECI, specifically in the Commission for the Promotion of National Entrepreneurship, we are working to remove barriers to women’s entrepreneurship. In Côte d’Ivoire, women are more present in the services sector and the informal trade sector. They rarely venture into activities perceived as large-scale, such as those related to the industrial sector. Thanks to Expertise France, we were able to participate in a training session on business environment reform for women’s economic empowerment, held in Abidjan in January 2025.

Returning to the ICR Facility: it also enables us to conduct a study to support these observations. This will give us a detailed overview of women’s presence in the industrial sector in Côte d’Ivoire, as well as the specific challenges they face. A focus will be placed on the agro-industry sector, where women are mainly involved at the beginning of the value chain (agricultural production and small-scale processing). The study will also include an analysis of good practices identified in other countries and their potential for replication in the Ivorian context.

What will this study help to achieve?

The study will highlight the barriers women face, along with the support and regulatory needs required to ensure better representation of women in the industrial sector. The Confederation will then be able to advocate to public authorities for the removal of potential regulatory obstacles, the inclusion of women in Côte d’Ivoire’s industrialization strategy, and the support—if needed—of reforms to create a more enabling environment for women entrepreneurs, particularly in industry.

We shared this experience during the ICR4WEE conference organized in June 2024 in Rwanda by Expertise France. We were part of the panel on integrating women into industrial policies. These initiatives reflect our commitment to gender issues and the economic empowerment of Ivorian women.