Senate President Alencia Williams-Grant join outlined how financial barriers prevent women from both business growth and political participation, calling for targeted investment to unlock what Williams-Grant termed “the woman factor.”

Speaking at the Caribbean-EU Parliamentary Assembly’s Women’s Forum yesterday, Senator Williams-Grant told delegates that investing in women is “not charity, it’s economic efficiency.”

“When we speak about investments, trade agreements and global gateways, we often focus on infrastructure, markets and regulatory frameworks,” Williams-Grant said. “But I want to invite us to consider one of the most underleveraged and underfunded investment drivers of sustainable growth within our economies: women.”

Senate President Alencia Williams-Grant addresses Caribbean-EU Parliamentary Assembly’s Women’s Forum (screenshot of OACPS Secretariat)

Senator Kiz Johnson who also made representations at the forum, called for the implementation of targeted systems to address the political representation gap, with Kiz-Johnson stating, “The time has come that there should be quotas.”

With women across the Caribbean owning 40 percent or more of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and are heavily represented in tourism, hospitality, retail, agro-processing, creative industries and services, women-led firms receive ten times less financing than male-owned businesses, with average loans of US$156,000 compared to US$1.54 million for men.

Williams-Grant emphasized that financial exclusion creates political exclusion.

“Women often lack the financial support required to scale businesses, secure loans, run for office, and sustain campaigns, and so they are excluded from participating in the electoral process,” she said.

“Economic exclusion becomes political exclusion, and political exclusion perpetuates economic exclusion. It’s time to break the cycle.”

Senator Kiz Johnson highlighted government initiatives supporting women’s economic empowerment, including the Prime Minister’s Entrepreneurial Development Fund, which has seen 47 percent female participation, and the Antigua and Barbuda Investment Authority’s capacity-building programs for small and medium-sized enterprise owners.

Senator Kiz Johnson addresses Caribbean-EU Parliamentary Assembly’s Women’s Forum (screenshot of OACPS Secretariat)

Williams-Grant called for concrete policy changes including corporate social investment in business incubators, childcare support services run by NGOs, financial literacy programming, and leadership development pipelines.