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 ❖ Who we are ❖ What we do ❖ About Us • Human rights • Peace&Security Intergovernmental platform • Development Research & analysis Capacity building UN ESCAP

❖ Leave no one behind

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

❖ Key Constraints for ❖ Facts and figures Women Entrepreneurs ➢ 47% of Samoan women find it difficult to access finance. Limited access to finance ➢ Limited access to land/fix assets Lack of collateral to access funds ➢ Only 1.6% of the Pacific Islands population is covered by non-life Lack of insurance insurance. ➢ Availability of training is limited for women and often restricted to urban areas. Lack of skills and access to ➢ Registration and other business procedures information (financial literacy, are complex. business and ICT) World Bank (2019); ADB (2015)

❖ Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Approach Transformative change Enabling Environment ❖ Our Initiative Conditions supporting provision of enabling tools and solutions: Policies, Programmes and Fin ICT Institutions Tech Innovative Finance Tools and solutions for women entrepreneurs Program undertaken with the Six Countries Three components financial support of the • Bangladesh Government of Canada provided Policy development and through Global Affairs Canada Cambodia regulatory environment • Fiji Access to credit & finance • Nepal Access to ICT & Capacity- Samoa Building Viet Nam

❖ 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 Private sector & NGOs: Innovative ideas and solutions for access to finance &, ICT, and skills development/training International Organizations: Partnering to advance women’s economic empowerment through entrepreneurship.

Four modalities ❖ Access to Finance through which Grant the project promotes women Equity enterprise access Debt to finance: ❖ Innovative Finance • Innovation funding rounds to provide risk capital and push innovators to develop Innovation Fund solution for the women MSME segment. (Grants) • FinTech enabling environment studies and advisory support on FinTech regulation. Women’s bond • Raises funds from capital markets for on- (Debt) lending to women entrepreneurs Impact • Equity investment mechanism for women- investment fund led enterprises (Equity) Capacity • Regional knowledge sharing, bootcamps building to and tailored capacity building support support replication and extension of innovative financial solutions

❖ ICT for Women Entrepreneurs ❖ Access to Technology Implemented by : Asian Leveraging on and Pacific Training Women ICT Centre for ICT for Frontier Initiative Development (WIFI) (APCICT), Incheon, ROK Two track approach Policymakers Women Entrepreneurs

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