IBRD Trust Funds - World Bank

Published purpose

This project supports the Women Entrepreneurs Financing Initiative (We-Fi). We-Fi’s mandate is to unlock the potential of women-owned and women-led small and medium sized enterprises (WSMEs) in developing countries. It mainly emphasizes WSMEs in low-income countries and countries dealing with fragility, conflict and violence. It aims to do this by sustainably addressing constraints these women face and by reducing the WSME financing gap. We-Fi enables WSMEs to grow, create jobs and improve productivity. Project activities include: (1) increasing access to finance; (2) strengthening access to markets; (3) ensuring access to training, mentoring and networks; and (4) improving the enabling environments for women in business. With funding of US$353 million from 14 governments, We-Fi’s collaborative partnership among multilateral development banks, governments and other stakeholders provides a unique ecosystem to unlock financing for women-owned and women-led businesses in developing countries. We-Fi works with six multilateral development banks as implementing partners: the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Islamic Development Bank and World Bank Group (including the International Finance Corporation). We-Fi has issued four calls for proposals to deliver on its mandate. The most recent round focused on addressing the needs of women entrepreneurs exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis, through the use of digital technologies and leveraging finance and data.