Ensuring Access to Finance for Women Entrepreneurs

Relatively few financial institutions consider women-led businesses an attractive and profitable target segment, while others often struggle to understand the needs of women-led businesses and thus miss potentially profitable opportunities to develop and deliver women customer- centric services. Impediments to more inclusive financial products, services and support include: the paucity of gender-disaggregated data; incorrect or misaligned incentives for policy implementation; absence of a gendered approach to designing products, services and delivery mechanisms; and gaps in regulatory or legal frameworks thatinhibitwomenentrepreneurs’access to finance. This Policy Brief argues for an integrated approach to ensuring that service providers understand the value of this market segment and provide women entrepreneurs appropriate products and services that fit their specific needs. It suggests using a gender lens and following a process of stakeholder consultation to ensure that the policies adopted are evidence- based and contextualised appropriately, drawing on an integrated and multilevel view of the ecosystem within which they operate. It also draws on evidence from various countries to support policy recommendations designed to promote more equitable access to finance.