How UAE supports We-Fi to help women entrepreneurs

Gulf News

UAE helps Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) to support female entrepreneurs in developing countries   Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/39Pmjkv  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos  Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  #UAE #GWFD #GlobalWomensForum

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00:00WIFI is a global program that focuses on supporting women entrepreneurs in emerging markets and

00:06we have a broad array of governments that have provided funding for the program, 14,

00:11one of which, one of the founding members was the United Arab Emirates.

00:16And we work through six multilateral development banks to run programs that support women entrepreneurs

00:22in these countries.

00:24We now have about $250 million that we've allocated to programs around the world, including

00:31the MENA region.

00:33They both include access to finance programs, access to markets.

00:38We also do a lot of work on the enabling environment and the legal and policy side of things.

00:43We try to take an ecosystem approach to address the challenges that women face when they want

00:48to become entrepreneurs.

00:50We have 29 projects that have begun implementation.

00:55Most of those are at the stage of working with partners.

00:57We work through local partners.

00:59That means we work with banks and other financial institutions like FinTechs and others.

01:04We work with corporates to try to get them to procure more.

01:08We work with regulators to try to get them to change laws.

01:12So most of the programs right now are in the process of getting those institutions to design

01:17their new products, design their new services to support women.

01:21And a number of the programs are starting to train the women that are the beneficiaries

01:26of those programs.

01:27We're so excited to be here and very grateful for the government of the Arab Emirates and

01:33the government of Dubai to be supporting the program here.

01:36We've tried to make the agenda for the WEFI Summit really be focused on spurring action,

01:41inspiring and engaging participants for the MENA region to try to drive more change in

01:47this area for the MENA region.

01:49We will also have a series of other workshops which are really designed to drive change

01:55and to drive momentum going forward.

01:57There will be workshops on women entrepreneurs in fragile states, which will be led by the

02:00Islamic Development Bank.

02:03Workshops on e-commerce and how women can get access to e-commerce.

02:08Workshops on value chains, because we know that only 1% of corporate value, global value

02:13chains are women-led companies that are participating in this.

02:20We're talking about banking and how do you get banks to accelerate financing for women.

02:24So we're covering a broad range of topics and the objective of the workshops is all

02:29to spur action.

02:30We're actually launching today with IFC a new program called ScaleX, which is meant

02:36to expand the number of women who get funding at the conclusion of these accelerator programs.

02:42So it's an incentive program that should work with a broad array of accelerators to help

02:49them focus more on getting women to the end goal, which is getting them financing.

02:54We only work in developing countries, so we're not doing projects, for example, in the United

02:58Arab Emirates.

02:59They're a donor country for us and we've been very grateful for that.

03:02In the first round of allocations, the first and second round of allocations, we had a

03:06few projects that were done in the MENA and there's obviously many projects happening

03:10in Africa, Latin America, Asia, other places.

03:14The Islamic Development Bank has kicked off their program with this initiative in Yemen,

03:18which is quite an interesting program to support women in that conflict-affected state.

03:24So we are really glad to see the work that they're doing directly with women that will

03:29also get financing to those women after they've gone through a series of training.

03:33So they'll be speaking here during the fragile states of breakout that we're having.

03:39We also have an e-commerce program and they also have an announcement today.

03:43They're going to be partnering with UPS to develop training programs for women to help

03:48them get access to markets through e-commerce.

03:51So that is a training program that works across the whole region to bring women up to the

03:57level of being able to access more e-commerce.

04:01And in addition, as part of that program, we've also been doing a lot of work and analytics

04:08around the regulatory environment and how to make sure women are on a level playing

04:13field.

04:14As you know, this is a big challenge.

04:16The MENA region has a lot of challenges, but there's been a great amount of momentum recently

04:22in terms of legal changes, both in the UAE.

04:26Saudi Arabia has had amazing changes this year, and then many other parts of the region

04:33are doing well.

04:34So that program, that's the World Bank program, where the UPS announcement is happening today,

04:40will be also covering the regulatory side.

04:43This year, as we request new calls for proposal from our implementing partners, the multilateral

04:49development banks that we look at, we have identified three things that we really want

04:53to focus on.

04:55One is early stage financing.

04:58So this whole ecosystem of accelerators, incubators, venture capital funds, how do we get more

05:03women through the pipeline and successfully receiving financing?

05:07We're looking at global value chains and international value chains.

05:11So that might be fast-moving consumer goods, or it might be agricultural value chains.

05:16We're trying to identify ways to get more women into value chains.

05:20As I mentioned, only 1% of the suppliers into global value chains are women-led businesses,

05:25so we really want to improve that.

05:27And then we're also looking at technology and fintech.

05:30So how do we get digital technologies to benefit more women entrepreneurs?

05:35So that's a big focus for us this year.

05:37I think it just shows that right now, this is a really important topic, and people understand

05:42the importance of empowering women.

05:44And we see it in the WEFI program is housed at the World Bank.

05:49It's such a high priority for the World Bank.

05:52But all of the implementing partners that we work with have really put it at the top

05:55of their priority list.

05:57I think in this region, even more so, the opportunity for spurring economic growth from

06:04having more women engaged and participating in the workforce and empowered through entrepreneurship

06:10is going to be critical for the next few years for growth and for creating better societies.

06:17So we're really excited to see what's happening here.

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