Financing Women Entrepreneurs in Ethiopia
The challenges faced by women-owned enterprises in the developing world are substantial. Only one-third of the world’s SMEs in the formal sector are currently run by women, and women owned businesses typically underperform men’s. Across countries a...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/440681480403080986/Financing-women-entrepreneurs-in-Ethiopia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25468 |
| Summary: | The challenges faced by women-owned
enterprises in the developing world are substantial. Only
one-third of the world’s SMEs in the formal sector are
currently run by women, and women owned businesses typically
underperform men’s. Across countries and contexts, access to
finance is continuously identified as the leading constraint
faced by women entrepreneurs. While finance is a challenge
for male and female enterprises alike, the difficulties are
amplified for women, who are less likely to own assets which
can serve as collateral andare more likely to suffer
exclusion based on unequal property rights or discriminatory
regulations, laws and customs. An estimated 70 percent of
women-owned SMEs in the formal sector in developing
countries are unserved or underserved by financial
institutions.This amounts to a financing gap of 285 billion
dollars. A diverse range of economic research shows that
addressing this financing gap and investing in women-owned
enterprises is one of the highes treturn opportunities
available in emerging markets.As they grow, women-owned
enterprises enhance labor participation and boost
broad-based economic growth. In particular, due to higher
female unemployment rates and the fact that women are more
likely to hire other women, the growth offemale-owned
enterprises can be a key driver in reducing high overall
unemployment rates. |
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