SMEs represent about 90% of businesses and over 50% employment globally, and contribute ~70% of the formal jobs in emerging markets, making these enterprises a high development priority. Further, incorporating gender diversity in operations can improve profitability as well as boost productivity of enterprises.
However, the access to finance gap for MSMEs coupled with limited workforce participation of women, impedes enterprise growth and socio-economic upliftment of women across emerging economies. We work with the public and private sector to scale up small enterprises and enable access to inclusive employment and entrepreneurial opportunities in these markets.
Our Areas of Intervention
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Gender Financing
Work with capital providers and ecosystem enablers to channel capital and BDS with a gender lens
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Gender integration
Undertake organizational and programmatic gender audits and design gender action plans
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Enabling small enterprises
Create strategic knowledge on MSMEs (like landscape analysis, business models, state of financing) and provide technical assistance, market-linkage and investment readiness support to build and scale enterprises
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Convening
Facilitate dialogues and engage ecosystem stakeholders to promote gender-inclusive employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in the Global South
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Capital Sourcing
Raising equity, debt, grant and facilitating M&As
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Impact investing ecosystems
Work with regional and global impact investing stakeholders to assess and enable ecosystem development