The announcement was made at the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, We-Fi, Middle East and North Africa, MENA, Regional Summit held on the sidelines of Global Women’s Forum Dubai 2020.
“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,” said David Malpass, World Bank Group President.
By WAM/Esraa Ismail/Nour Salman for Emirates News Agency
DUBAI, 16th February, 2020 (WAM) — The World Bank Group announced two new initiatives to improve access to start-up financing and e-commerce markets for female entrepreneurs.
The announcement was made at the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, We-Fi, Middle East and North Africa, MENA, Regional Summit held on the sidelines of Global Women’s Forum Dubai 2020.
“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,” said David Malpass, World Bank Group President. “Removing regulatory barriers along with obstacles to access to finance and markets can give women-led businesses the opportunity to succeed.”
We-Fi, housed at the World Bank, has so far allocated close to US$250 million to tackle challenges women entrepreneurs face in developing countries. The allocations aim to reach 114,000 female entrepreneurs. We-Fi is a powerful catalyst for additional investment, helping mobilise more than $2.6 billion in additional public and private sector funds.
The We-Fi MENA Regional Summit also saw the International Finance Corporation, IFC, and We-Fi launch the ScaleX programme to incentivise accelerators to support start-up businesses led by women.
IFC research shows that female entrepreneurs in emerging markets face a daunting gender finance gap, with only 11 percent of enterprises that actually attain seed funding being female-led. New research shows that despite women leading half the start-ups that participate in accelerators designed to train and support the development of start-ups to become investment ready they continue to face greatly unequal access to capital.
The ScaleX programme will incentivise emerging markets accelerators to work with women-led businesses by providing performance-based payments of $25,000 for every female entrepreneur that raises $1 million from investors in start-up funding.
“We are launching the ScaleX programme to help women entrepreneurs in emerging markets to access funding at a crucial stage to grow their businesses,” said Sérgio Pimenta, IFC Regional Vice President for the Middle East and Africa. “This is a win-win for accelerators, investors, and women entrepreneurs.”
The World Bank and UPS also announced today a new partnership to help women entrepreneurs in the MENA region to grow their businesses by assisting them in successfully leveraging e-commerce platforms.