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TO WOMEN-OWNED SMES
An analysis of more than 2,200 enterprises receiving small and medium-size enterprise (SME) loans from 34
IFC client financial institutions in 25 countries showed that, overall, about 16.4-18.5% of the loans were is-
sued to women-owned SMEs, with regional variations from 5.7% to 28.1%. This indicates quite a low access
to finance for women entrepreneurs and overall low women’s ownership in emerging markets. It is estimated
that in CY11, IFC clients had about 490,000- 820,000 loans issued to women-owned SMEs, or 15-25% of 3.3
million SME loans.
Table 2: About 650,000 loans were outstanding to women-owned SMEs out of total 3.3 million loans in
the portfolio of IFC’s FM clients in the end of 2011.
REGION GENDER BASELINE (% OF SME LOANS NUMBER OF LOANS TO WOMEN-OWNED
(10K–$1 OR $2M) TO WOMEN-OWNED FIRMS) SMES IN CY11 (PLUS RANGE OF ESTIMATE)
East Asia 26.6% (Range: 21.3–31.9%) 270,235 (216,391–324,079)
Latin America and 22.2 %(Range: 17.6–26.8%) 164,090 (130,089–198,091)
the Caribbean
Europe & Central Asia 18.1 %(Range: 13.6–22.6%) 157,879 (118,627–197,131)
Sub-Saharan Africa 15.1 %(Range: 9.2–21.0%) 8,567 (5,219–11 ,914)
South Asia 9.5 %(Range: 4.3–14.7%) 47,520 (21,509–73,531)
Middle East & North 5.7 %(Range: 0.8–10.6%) 6,012 (844–11,180)
Africa
Global 16.4% (Range: 13.9–18.9%) 654,303 (492,680–815,925)
2
The gender baseline based on the IFC’s women-owned
Figure 2: If firms with 25–50% women ownership
SME definition led to an increase in the share of loans
and women in key decision making roles are
provided to women-owned SMEs. This increase varies
taken into consideration as well, the regional
from 3.8 percent to 0.6 percent. The most notable in-
trends stay the same with insignificant increases.
crease was observed in Latin America and the Carib-
bean (+3.8 percent), followed by Europe and Central
East Asia & Pacific
Asia (+2.8 percent). The baseline estimate increased by
28.1%
1.8 percent in Middle East and North Africa and by 1.5
Latin America & Caribbean
percent in East Asia. A marginal increase was seen in
26.0%
the estimates for Sub-Saharan Africa (+1.1 percent) and
Europe & Central Asia
South Asia (+0.6 percent).
20.9%
The extrapolation based on the above definition esti- Sub-Saharan Africa
mates that IFC’s reach to women-owned enterprises 16.2%
was about 730,000 in CY11. South Asia
10.0%
Conclusion Middle East & North Africa
The survey shows that access to finance for women- 7.5%
owned SMEs varies significantly from region to region, Total Portfolio Sample
indicating overall low women’s ownership of SMEs 18.5%
around the world based on two presented definitions.
The survey allowed the IFC to establish a valuable gen- 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
der baseline, which was previously available neither Percent of Loans to Women-Owned SMEs
to the IFC nor to its client banks. The differences in
women’s ownership between the two definitions—one
based on ownership only and one based on ownership
as well as target setting for increased support of women
and control—are small, so relatively little was gained by
entrepreneurs. The gender baseline is also suitable for ex-
using the more expansive definition at this time. This
trapolating the number of women-owned SMEs reached
may change over time, however, as more women par-
by IFC FM clients on an annual basis. Given the wide
ticipate in firm ownership and decision-making.
regional variations it is recommended that each region
The obtained results can be used to better focus IFC’s should be viewed separately while developing programs
offerings in the area of supporting women-owned SMEs targeted at supporting women-owned SMEs.
1
IFC annually collects information about the loans provided by IFC-funded financial institutions, with special focus on
MSME loans (also known as “IFC’s MSME reach”).
2
In some cases the SME portfolio did not contain any or enough loans in the “micro” category (for the purposes of this
survey loans from $1K-10K), so the sampling size was smaller.
3
Banks that had any definition for women-owned firms usually defined them as firms with 51%+ women’s ownership.
4
The $2 million cut-off is used for advanced emerging markets
5
As a part of this survey, the accuracy of the IFC’s SME loan size proxy for IFC’s Financial Markets clients was verified, and
it showed that the SME loan size proxy is 80.4% accurate at identifying the underlying SME enterprises according to the
IFC’s MSME definition.
6
Currently, IFC defines women-owned enterprises as a firm with (a) ≥51.0 percent ownership/stake by a woman/women;
or (b) ≥20.0 percent owned by a woman/women AND ≥1 woman as CEO/COO (President/Vice-President) as well as ≥30.0
percent of the board of directors being women where a board exists.