The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) – which\u00a0 is a powerful catalyst for additional investment, helping mobilize more than $2.6 billion – has so far allocated up to $250 million to address the challenges facing women entrepreneurs in developing countries.<\/p>\n
The allocations aim to reach 114,000 women entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
The World Bank Group announced two new initiatives to improve access to start-up financing and e-commerce markets for women entrepreneurs, at the We-Fi Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Summit.<\/p>\n
\u201c<\/i>Starting and growing a business is one of the most powerful tools for women to overcome poverty and build better lives for themselves, their families, and their communities,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0David Malpass, World Bank Group President. <\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cRemoving regulatory barriers along with obstacles to access to finance and markets can give women-led businesses the opportunity to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the We-Fi MENA Regional Summit, held during the Global Women\u2019s Forum Dubai 2020, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and We-Fi launched the ScaleX program to incentivize accelerators to support start-up businesses led by women.<\/p>\n
IFC research shows that women entrepreneurs in emerging markets face a daunting gender finance gap with only 11% of enterprises that actually attain seed funding being female-led.<\/p>\n
New research shows that despite women leading half the start-ups that participate in accelerators\u2014entities designed to train and support the development of start-ups to become investment ready\u2014they continue to face greatly unequal access to capital.<\/i><\/p>\n
The program will incentivize emerging markets accelerators to work with women-led businesses by providing performance-based payments of $25,000 for every woman entrepreneur that raises $1 million from investors in start-up funding.<\/p>\n
“We are launching the ScaleX program to help women entrepreneurs in emerging markets to access funding at a crucial stage to grow their businesses,\u201d\u00a0<\/i>said\u00a0S\u00e9rgio Pimenta, IFC Regional Vice President for the Middle East and Africa.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i>\u201cThis is a win-win for accelerators, investors, and women entrepreneurs.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0World Bank and UPS partner to support women startups<\/h4>\n
The World Bank and UPS also announced today a new partnership to help women entrepreneurs in the Middle East and North Africa region to grow their businesses by assisting them in successfully leveraging e-commerce platforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy making e-commerce platforms more accessible, this partnership addresses a key constraint faced by women business leaders in reaching new markets,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Ferid Belhaj, World Bank MENA Vice President.<\/i> \u201cE-commerce platforms create opportunities, and we must ensure these opportunities are open to women-owned businesses across the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
UPS will provide e-learning modules on different e-commerce topics to help women-owned and women-led small and medium enterprises seeking to expand their businesses across borders.<\/p>\n
The project will support an estimated 750 women entrepreneurs and will train a cadre of e-commerce advisors in each country who can provide tailored assistance and coaching to businesses. The partnership will work with entrepreneurs in Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia.<\/p>\n
We-Fi has made allocations to programs being implemented by the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank. the Islamic Development Bank, and the World Bank Group.<\/p>\n
The World Bank and IFC We-Fi programs ($75 million in allocations) are working with private and public partners in 24 countries via 27 investment and advisory projects to enable women entrepreneurs to access finance and markets and amplify those efforts with global research, partnerships, and policy advocacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) – which\u00a0 is a powerful catalyst for additional investment, helping mobilize more than $2.6 billion – has so far allocated up to $250 million to address the challenges facing women entrepreneurs in developing countries. The allocations aim to reach 114,000 women entrepreneurs. The World Bank Group announced two new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":52023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[984,6259],"tags":[6248,8329],"yoast_head":"\n