Women-owned businesses are essential to Asia and the Pacific's growing economies. However, women entrepreneurs, compared to men, continue to face challenges in owning and growing their businesses, accessing finance, and participating in markets. In close partnership with the governments of Indonesia and the Philippines and with the support of JPMorgan Chase, ADB's Advancing Women and Trade Program has trained over 400 women entrepreneurs, building their skills, capacities, and networks. 

The program has achieved major milestones in women's entrepreneurship development including the first Women's Financial Inclusion Strategy in Indonesia, the first national definition of "women-owned business" in the Philippines, strengthened institutional capacity on gender-responsive procurement and trade policies.

Transcript

Women-owned businesses are essential to Asia and the Pacific’s growing economies. However, women face challenges to owning and growing their businesses, accessing finance, and participating in markets. Asian Development Bank in partnership with JPMorgan Chase trained over 400 women entrepreneurs in Indonesia and the Philippines building their skills, capacities, and networks.

We are Cakrawala Muda Mandiri, or known as CMM, a language service provider that provides translation and interpretation services. After attending the business skills training, I learned that as a female entrepreneur, I can access formal financial services, gain financial digital literacy to make better financial and management decisions, to save more, invest better, and also be more aware about the available financial tools, and to have better opportunities. I believe that having a platform that can accommodate female entrepreneurs helped me to feel connected and more encouraged.

Women entrepreneurs are important to Indonesia’s Vision 2045. ADB’s Advancing Women and Trade program provided timely support to Indonesia and over the past years, we are proud of the important innovations we have achieved. This includes the first National Women’s Financial Inclusion Strategy, a global first. Through this strategy, Indonesia has been able to work on new policy actions on trade –including another global first e-Learning program on gender and trade for 100 policy makers. We have also implemented a roadmap for women-owned SMEs, with concrete targets, and a new roadmap for gender-responsive procurement.

In a country like the Philippines, we don't normally think of women as less excluded, as less empowered. The Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprise survey was very rich with findings and insights. But let me highlight three things. Number one, more women-owned businesses cited access to finance as a challenge compared to men-owned businesses. Number two, women-owned businesses used fewer banking services compared to men-owned businesses. And number three,
women-owned businesses have fewer business registrations, business permits compared to men, which show that their businesses have lower levels of formality compared to men.

I think one of the more important results of this program was really to come to a common definition, in fact, a national definition of what we mean by women-owned MSMEs. For a while, every government agency had a different definition or understanding what this means. So having one definition is a step forward as this provides a consistent understanding of who the beneficiaries are of the reforms and the policies that need to be promulgated for the benefit of women entrepreneurs.

In close partnership with the governments of Indonesia and the Philippines and with the support of JPMorgan Chase, ADB’s Advancing Women and Trade program has invested in gender-responsive entrepreneurship ecosystems to support women businesses to grow and contribute to their economies. The program has achieved major milestones in women's entrepreneurship development. Some highlights include the first women's financial inclusion strategy in Indonesia, the first national definition of women-owned business in the Philippines, and strengthened institutional capacity on gender-responsive procurement and trade policies. ADB looks forward to working closely with national and development partners to advancing and accelerating women's entrepreneurship in the region.