Sri Lanka among initial countries to pilot WE Finance Code – ADB
Sri Lanka is among the initial countries to pilot the Asian Development Bank WE Finance Code, which is a global commitment funded by the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), aimed at increasing women’s access to finance and support their economic empowerment, Keiko Nowacka, Principal Social Development Specialist, ADB told an awareness event held in Colombo recently.
Sri Lanka is among the initial countries to pilot this initiative and ADB will tailor the WE Finance Code to respond to Sri Lanka’s key priorities for women entrepreneurs with three key components: fostering a women-led small and medium-sized enterprises-focused policy and regulatory framework, incentivizing private sector engagement, including through digital solutions, and fostering evidence and knowledge through peer learning and new evidence, she said.
“This code is really focused on the supply side challenges that affect women entrepreneurs in accessing finance. Here we are really focusing more on the policy and regulatory environment and the focus is on data as a starting point of improving women’s access to Finance. So this is a global initiative led out by the WE-FI Secretariat and it has different global partners and is available through multilateral development banks such as the ADB,” she added. Meanwhile over 1,500 women entrepreneurs employing 21,494 workers have financially benefitted from the $9.5 million We-Fi grant mobilized with ADB’s $46.6 million loan funds as blended finance in Sri Lanka in past few years, Uresha Walpitagama, Financial Sector Specialist Asian Development Bank said.
Out of this 25% were disbursed to project in lagging regions with 35% made to first time borrowers and 48% of the loans granted on non-collateralized basis. She said nearly 90% of loans and We-Fi grants were made for economic activities outside Colombo District, including in lagging regions (Eastern, Northern, Sabaragamuwa and Uva provinces) and across various industries including manufacturing, tourism, trade, healthcare, agriculture and construction.
She also said that the ADB has conducted a specialized training program for women entrepreneurs and 470 women entrepreneurs completed the program. They also launched the online platform SME Connect in October 2022 to build business capacity of WSMEs through learning, mentoring and networking. Currently 902 women entrepreneurs are registered on the platform.
“Availability of a robust framework for sex-disaggregated financial data reporting will facilitate financial service providers to introduce gender-smart financial products and services. Moreover, it will enable policymakers to implement gender-informed policies, promote evidence-based decision making, provide targeted interventions and track the progress of such interventions on an ongoing basis,” Zahra Cader, ESG, Government and Public Sector Leader, Deloitte Advisory Services (Pvt) Ltd and Team Leader to the “Financial Sector Stability and Reforms Program (Subprogram 1) – WE-FI Code Pilot” project said.
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