Project Title: Catalyzing Access to finance for Women Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh
Donor: World Bank
Contact Person & Organization: ECONS BANGLADESH
Project Timeline: 2022 - 2023
Project Description:
IFC aims to support creation of an enabling environment for the financial sector to expand access to finance for women SME (WSME) entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. IFC has been working with Bangladesh Bank and launched country’s first comprehensive SME policy and credit guarantee scheme for women entrepreneurs. Through addressing the gender gap in access to finance by comprehensive SME policy, capacity development of regulators and credit guarantee scheme, this project working for allowing Bangladeshi WSME entrepreneurs to contribute to the country's inclusive economic growth.
The objectives of the project are:
• Develop a fully functional Credit Guarantee Scheme (CGS) for women owned SME entrepreneurs which can be implemented by Bangladesh Bank (BB).
• Review and upgrade the existing BB lending policies for women owned SMEs which will lead to the issuance of a new circular.
• Strengthen the capacity of all staff of BB's SME department on SME strategy formulation, product development, and international regulatory and supervisory best practices to develop the SME financing sector. This pool of resources at the regulator will help the SME finance markets function better and contribute to bringing systemic changes in the long run.
This research aims to evaluate the impact of the CGS in taking up loans and firm-level outcomes.
Research Design & Sample Size:
This is a quasi-experimental research using a sample of urban & rural SME entrepreneurs. We will randomly select 543 loan applicants from the applicant pool of which 450 will be WSMEs(Women owned SME) and 93 will be MSMEs (Men owned SME).
The four arms will be constructed as below:
A. 163 WSMEs that received both loans and CGS
B. 163 WSMEs that received loans but did not receive CGS
C. 93 WSMEs that almost met the criteria of CGS but did not receive the loan
D. 31 WSMEs that received CGS after July 1, 2021 (D), 93 MSMEs
Results & Policy Lessons:
Not yet completed.
