Catalyzing Womens Entrepreneurship: Creating a gender-responsive - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship:

Creating a gender-responsive entrepreneurial ecosystem

• Ms. Cai Cai

Chief Gender Equality & Social Inclusion Section Social Development Division

United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok

❖About Us

❖ Who we are ❖ What we do

UN ESCAP

Intergovernmental platform Research & analysis Capacity building

• Human rights
• Peace&Security
• Development

❖ Leave no one behind

Achieve Gender Equality and Empower all women and girls 9 Targets 14 Gender-Specific indicators

❖ Key Constraints for Women Entrepreneurs

Limited access to finance Lack of collateral to access funds Lack of skills and access to information (financial literacy, business and ICT)

❖ Facts and figures

➢ 47% of Samoan women find it difficult to access finance. ➢ Limited access to land/fix assets

➢ Availability of training is limited for women and often restricted to urban areas. ➢ Registration and other business procedures are complex.

World Bank (2019); ADB (2015)

Lack of insurance ➢ Only 1.6% of the Pacific Islands population is covered by non-life insurance.

❖ Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship

Three components

• Policy development and

regulatory environment

• Access to credit & finance
• Access to ICT & Capacity-

Building

❖ Our Initiative

Transformative change Conditions supporting provision of enabling tools and solutions: Policies, Programmes and Institutions Tools and solutions for women entrepreneurs

ICT Fin Tech Innovative Finance Enabling Environment

Ecosystem Approach Six Countries

Bangladesh Cambodia Fiji Nepal Samoa Viet Nam

Program undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada provided through Global Affairs Canada

❖ Enabling policy – gender responsive ecosystem to support women entrepreneurs

Women entrepreneurs (women’s business networks associations) Government:

Inter-ministerial collaboration (Commerce and Industry, ICT, Finance, Central Bank, Women’s Ministry, etc.) to develop policies, programmes and services to address economic and social barriers facing women

International Organizations:

Partnering to advance women’s economic empowerment through entrepreneurship.

Private sector & NGOs:

Innovative ideas and solutions for access to finance &, ICT, and skills development/training

❖ Access to Finance ❖ Innovative Finance

Women’s bond (Debt) Innovation Fund (Grants) Impact investment fund (Equity)

• Innovation funding rounds to provide risk

capital and push innovators to develop solution for the women MSME segment.

• FinTech enabling environment studies and

advisory support on FinTech regulation.

• Raises funds from capital markets for on-

lending to women entrepreneurs

• Equity investment mechanism for women-

led enterprises

• Regional knowledge sharing, bootcamps

and tailored capacity building support

Four modalities through which the project promotes women enterprise access to finance:

Capacity building to support replication and extension of innovative financial solutions

Equity Debt Grant

Two track approach

Women Entrepreneurs Policymakers ❖ ICT for Women Entrepreneurs

❖Access to Technology

Implemented by: Asian

and Pacific Training Centre for ICT for Development (APCICT), Incheon, ROK Leveraging on Women ICT Frontier Initiative (WIFI)

National Consultation Agenda

Objective:

➢ Discuss challenges and national priorities for women’s entrepreneurship development ➢ Identify key actions & strategy of the project in addressing the challenges

Panel 1: Creating a gender-responsive entrepreneurial ecosystem Panel 2: Increasing access to finance for women entrepreneurs Panel 3: Leveraging the power of ICT