The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved $155.5 million in financing for Pakistan that will support policy reforms enhancing women’s access to finance and providing credit to women-led micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises.
The financing comprises a $100 million policy-based loan that supports legal and regulatory reforms that will help women to better access finance; a $50 million financial intermediation loan that will enable participating financial institutions to lend to women entrepreneurs; and a $5.5 million grant that will finance related activities, said a statement issued today
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“Inclusive, resilient and sustainable development cannot be achieved if women do not have equal economic opportunities and benefits,” said ADB Director General for Central and West Asia Yevgeniy Zhukov.
He said, “ADB’s new program will help transform Pakistan’s current financing ecosystem to help women to access much-needed finance and empower them to boost their livelihoods while contributing significantly to the economy.”
Female labor force participation in Pakistan currently stands at about 23%. The country also has among the lowest rates of women’s entrepreneurship in the world at 4% of female working age adults.
While Pakistan’s financial inclusion has been improving, women are increasingly left behind with a large gender finance gap which currently stands at 34%.
“There are many women entrepreneurs in Pakistan, but they remain unrecognized, being small and informal in nature and lacking the incentives to register their businesses formally or to grow,” said ADB Senior Financial Sector Economist Andrew McCartney.
