IFC, has recently released a report titled “Banking on woman, who trade across the border”.
This report is an in-depth study on the entrepreneurship by woman, and very clearly depicts the challenges faced by woman entrepreneurs.
I have done an analysis to bring a concise and brief interpretation for our readers.
This report emphasizes that in alleviating poverty and driving economic growth, international trade has a very crucial role to play. This report also emphasizes on the challenges faced by SMEs and difficulties faced by woman entrepreneur across the globe.
The focus is not only on difficulties and problems but on the solutions as well.
It says that to address these challenges, IFC has undertaken Initiatives like,
Banking on Woman Global Trade Finance Program, and
Global Trade Finance Program.
These initiatives have provided significant support to SMEs, including woman owned businesses.
But the obstacles faced by Woman entrepreneurs are not in a limited circumference, so to resolve this issue properly there is still a need to understand, and address those obstacles.
IFC conducted a detailed study aiming to mitigate the gender gap in trade finance and foster the growth of woman led businesses and come up with the insights and recommendations to deal with the situations.
Here are some key recommendations:
- Establishing collateral registries and credit bureaus as information brokers can significantly reduce information asymmetry, enabling women to demonstrate their creditworthiness more easily.
- Leveraging supply chain finance can provide a vital pathway, empowering both sellers and buyers
- The digitization of financial services
- Capacity building for women-led and women-owned SMEs
- Development partners need to provide capacity training on both innovative and traditional trade finance instrument
- Women-owned and women-led enterprises, including SMEs, can participate more actively in industry associations, sharing experiences and improving their collective business case.
- Invest in gender-sensitivity training & gender diversity of bank staff to remove conscious and unconscious biases
- Create and/or enhance a global network comprising women business associations and relevant industry sectors and other stakeholders
- Improve credit line access
- Partner directly with women’s entrepreneurship groups
Here I have shared kay suggestions, but one can study a detailed report on IFC’s website.
Click here to find full report: Banking on Women Who Trade Across Borders (ifc.org)
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