Bridging the Finance Gap for Women Entrepreneurs

Readers guide

What will I learn from this report?

This report provides valuable insights for policy makers who are interested in understanding the barriers to entrepreneurship by women and how public policy can address them, based on international academic and policy research. It includes a presentation of cross-country data on levels and characteristics of entrepreneurship activity by men and women and data and evidence on access to finance by women. The key policy issues are also highlighted to readers. Note that references to gender and gender gaps in entrepreneurship refer to activities by men and women entrepreneurs and differences between them.

The report contains a collection of 29 policy insight notes from different OECD and emerging and developing country economies, each focusing on a women’s entrepreneurship finance issue. Some of these issues are long-standing (e.g. effectively delivering microfinance), while others are attracting increasing attention from governments (e.g. investing in high-growth potential women entrepreneurs and harnessing fintech to address gender gaps in finance). The notes describe the context, policy issues, policy developments and lessons.

How can I read this report?

The report can be read from cover to cover, but it was designed to allow readers to easily access materials on issues or economies that are of most interest to them. It is structured in two parts. Part I contains nine chapters, with the first presenting the main policy messages from the policy insight notes and the second illustrating the state of women’s entrepreneurship across OECD countries. Chapters 3 through 9 provide an overview of a policy issue related to improving access to finance for women entrepreneurs. Part II is comprised of 29 policy insight notes from OECD countries and beyond. An overview of the issues and economies covered is provided in Table 1.

Table 1. Overview of the focus of the women’s entrepreneurship policy insight notes

Policy area	Note	Policy issue
Fostering conducive cultural attitudes	China	Social and cultural issues related to financial policies
	Czechia	Gender norms and access to finance for women entrepreneurs
	Iran	Social attitudes and the funding landscape for female entrepreneurs
	Malaysia	Social and cultural perspectives on navigating financial access
	Uganda	Socio-cultural issues affecting access to finance
Boosting financial literacy	Canada	Financial literacy programmes
	India	The need to boost the financial literacy of women entrepreneurs
	Mexico	Digital financial literacy and financial exclusion
Facilitating access to start-up funding through microfinance	Sri Lanka	Human rights and microfinance
	Tanzania	Access to microfinance for start-ups
Leveraging angel investors and networks for equity investments	Poland	Lack of government policy initiatives and networks
	United Kingdom (Wales note)	Women entrepreneurs’ access to finance
Financing growth-oriented start-ups	Australia	Financing growth (public and private)
	Brazil	Supporting innovative women entrepreneurs
	Finland	Addressing the under-representation of women in innovative entrepreneurship
	France	Financing women entrepreneurs in tech
	Italy	Financing female-led innovative start-ups
	New Zealand	Mitigating the gender gap in equity finance
	Nigeria	Women-owned businesses and social-cultural issues affecting access to finance in multinational supply chains
	United States	Access to growth capital
Harnessing the potential of fintech to improve access to start-up finance for women entrepreneurs	United Kingdom (Scotland note)	Improving access to finance through crowdfunding
	South Africa	Boosting financial inclusion with fintech
	Spain	Women in the fintech sector – all that glitters is not gold
Improving programme design and access	Ireland	Women entrepreneurs struggle to access start-up and early-stage finance
	Kazakhstan	Empowering women entrepreneurs: A regional government perspective
	Slovenia	Competition for financial incentives for women entrepreneurs
	Sweden	SMEs’ access to finance
	United Kingdom	Access to start-up finance
	United Kingdom (Northern Ireland note)	Absence of a dedicated women’s entrepreneurship finance policy

How was this report developed?

This report was developed under the responsibility of the OECD with collaboration from the Global Women’s Entrepreneurship Policy Research Project (GWEP). The report digs deeper into an issue identified as one of the key constraints to women’s entrepreneurship in a previous OECD-GWEP report Entrepreneurship Policy through a Gender Lens (OECD, 2021[1]), namely access to finance for women entrepreneurs.

The OECD Secretariat drafted material based on international data on the state of women’s entrepreneurship and women’s entrepreneurship finance and a stocktaking on policy trends and issues internationally. Academic experts in the GWEP network were invited to propose short country-level women’s entrepreneurship policy insight notes on a topical issue related to access to finance. A balance of proposals was selected by the editors for inclusion in the report and a few papers were solicited from other academic experts to expand the range of material. The country-level policy insight notes were peer-reviewed by the GWEP network and the OECD, and versions were finalised by the editors. The full report was discussed by the OECD Committee on SMEs and Entrepreneurship (CSMEE), reviewed by the OECD Secretariat and published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD.

Reference

[1] OECD (2021), Entrepreneurship Policies through a Gender Lens, OECD Studies on SMEs and Entrepreneurship, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/71c8f9c9-en.