Judith Frickenstein is financial sector advisor at GIZ’s programme Promoting Financial Sector Dialogue in Africa: Making Finance Work for Africa, where she is in charge of Gender and Agricultural Finance. Prior to her current position she led the economic empowerment component of GIZ’s gender sector programme, where she helped to design a regional programme in the MENA region and consulted economic development programmes in Albania, Montenegro and Uganda. Before joining GTZ (now GIZ) in 2007, Judith worked for the Retail Development Group in Cologne, Germany and for the German DEVK insurance company. She holds a diploma in economics from the University of Cologne and completed a vocational traineeship at an insurance company.