At the G‐20 Seoul Summit in November 2010, the G‐20 Leaders endorsed the ‘Financial Inclusion Action Plan’ and the creation of the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI). From that came a subgroup on SME finance designed to identify and scale up successful models of SME financing. The group introduced a work stream to address the challenges women entrepreneurs face in growing their businesses, which the group acknowledged as “major bottlenecks to growth and development.” This work stream encompasses research and data, policy recommendations and identification of finance models geared to the needs of women entrepreneurs. According to the subgroup, “In many countries, half or more micro businesses are owned by women. But research shows that a disproportionate share of these businesses fail to grow and evidence so far suggests that access to finance is one major constraint for growth. Other barriers include constraints on mobility, competing household responsibilities, risk aversion, lack of training, exclusion from entrepreneurial networks, and social restrictions.”
Within this context, the GPFI released a report, “Strengthening Access to Finance for Women SMEs in Developing Countries,” at the G‐20 Summit in Cannes on November 4, 2011. The report sets out to analyze the issues in improving access to finance for women‐owned businesses. The report highlights key trends, challenges and opportunities for advancing women’s entrepreneurship and increasing their access to finance, including identifying financial and non‐financial institutions with scalable approaches; highlighting knowledge gaps and providing policy recommendations.
Women’s World Banking’s Response
