The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) has announced its second funding allocations — expected to benefit 70,000 women-led businesses across the world and mobilize nearly a billion dollars of additional public and private sector resources.
The second round allocates $129 million for programs to boost women’s entrepreneurship that will be implemented by four multilateral development banks, expecting to mobilize $990 million of additional funds from other public and private sources.
The African Development Bank received $61.8 million for activities covering 21 African countries; the Asian Development Bank received $20.2 million for activities in Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji; the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development received $22.9 million for activities in low-income Central Asian countries; and the Inter-American Development Bank received $24.28 million for activities in countries across Latin America and the Caribbean.
This compliments the first round of We-Fi funds announced in April 2018, which allocated $120 million for projects implemented by the World Bank Group, Asian Development Bank, and Islamic Development Bank to tackle the barriers facing women entrepreneurs across developing countries.
Together, the two allocations aim to reach 115,000 women entrepreneurs and mobilize $2.6 billion in additional public and private sector resources, ten times the resources allocated by We-Fi’s 14 donor governments.
“We-Fi is the first of its kind — a large-scale, multi-stakeholder partnership designed to address obstacles facing women entrepreneurs through comprehensive, sustainable solutions,” said Geoffrey Okamoto, Chair of the We-Fi Governing Committee and Acting Assistant Secretary for International Finance and Development at the United States Department of the Treasury. “The idea is not to fund individual women entrepreneurs, but to fund projects that disrupt the systemic causes of financial obstacles to women’s entrepreneurship.”
Seventy percent of the current We-Fi funding allocation will benefit women entrepreneurs in extremely poor countries and countries affected by wars and conflict.
Under the second round of funding:
The African Development Bank (AfDB) was granted $61.8 million for its program “Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa” (AFAWA). The program will offer innovative and tailored financial instruments including a women-focused first loss risk-sharing facility, specialized capacity-building training, and targeted initiatives to dramatically transform the business- enabling environment for women entrepreneurs.
Of 21 economies targeted, AFAWA will mainly service poor and fragile or conflict-affect countries where women are underserved in accessing financing, markets, knowledge, and mentoring programs. These countries include Burundi, Chad, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
About We-Fi:
Established in 2017 at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, We-Fi supports women entrepreneurs with access to finance, markets, technology, mentoring, and other services, while working with governments and the private sector to improve the laws and policies inhibiting women’s businesses in developing countries
We-Fi is supported by the governments of Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Republic of South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh, a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organisations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.