The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) – announced at the G20 Leaders’ Summit in July 2017 and launched at the Bank-Fund Annual Meetings in October – creates an unprecedented opportunity to harness the public and private sectors to open new doors for women entrepreneurs across the developing world. With funding of over $350 million from fourteen governments, this collaborative partnership among governments, multilateral development banks (MDBs), and other stakeholders has been designed to unlock financing for women-led/owned businesses in developing countries, including in the most challenging environments. We-Fi will support women entrepreneurs by scaling up access to financial products and services, building capacity, expanding networks, offering mentors, and providing opportunities to link with domestic and global markets. It will also assist governments in creating enabling environments for women in business.

 

We-Fi opened for business on October 12, 2017 and the first round of funding allocations were announced on April 19, 2018, with $120 million slated for three programs designed to knock down the unique barriers facing women entrepreneurs in developing countries.  This first round of allocated funding is expected to mobilize over $1.6 billion in additional funds from the private sector, donors, governments and other development partners: that’s twice the amount originally targeted for We-Fi over its lifetime.

 

The first round includes funding for proposals from the Islamic Development Bank to complement and expand successful initiatives in Yemen, Mali and Nigeria; the Asian Development Bank to improve the business environment for women in Sri Lanka; and the World Bank Group for global, regional and country specific activities to increase public and private sector support for women in business, with a focus on the poorest and most fragile environments.