International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank Group, has estimated that women-owned Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) record an annual global deficit of about $1.5trillion in required loan acquisition.
The disclosure was part of the discussions at a global forum on women empowerment recently sponsored by the World Bank in partnership with IFC.
In his opening remarks, the President of the World Bank, David Malpass, said that “both international financial institutions were working together to promote and support women-owned business enterprises.”
According to Malpass, women’s economic empowerment is a global imperative. He stated that the World Bank Group has many strong partners, as it seeks to broaden the empowerment of female entrepreneurs.
Speaking further, Malpass noted that women entrepreneurs have a major impact on communities, not only in socio-economic terms but also as change agents.
A Senior Adviser to the United States Government, who was one of the panelists at the forum, Ivanka Trump, stressed that access to capital has been challenging for women.
“In 70 per cent of the developing world, women face an inability to access capital or funding from institutions,” she said.
Also, giving his thoughts at the forum, the Chairman of Goldman Sachs, a leading global investment bank, David Solomon, said the GSK10KWomen Initiative was launched to explore the potential for women, which recorded enormous success.
The GS10KWomen, according to Solomon, has so far made strides in addressing the financing gap for women across the globe.
“Currently, women own 28 per cent of small businesses in emerging markets and closing the gender credit gap for women-owned SMEs could push annual incomes higher by 2030,” he said.
Meanwhile, financial institutions are beginning to prioritise earmarking huge funds for women-owned SMEs, as a way of increasing credit-based facilities which have, over time, appeared to be more endearing to female entrepreneurs.