Technical assistance for financing women and youth-led enterprises in Eswatini

Context

In Eswatini, promoting women in business and leadership positions has seen obstacles. The country scored low on the Women, Business and the Law 2023 index, where it is ranked 46.3 out of 100 points, scoring a zero in the entrepreneurship indicator. This indicates a very high level of constraints for women starting and running a business. Additionally, according to the Eswatini Gender Inclusive Finance Roadmap, many women face barriers to access and use quality financial services, particularly in in opening a bank account and obtaining credit for their businesses.

Passionate about the advancement of gender equality in the business section, the Eswatini National Industrial Development Corporation (ENIDC) is aware of the need to empower and integrate women into the business environment. The Corporation aims to develop a program to encourage women and youth to access more funding and foster employment creation.

Objectives

The ICR Facility provides expertise and technical assistance to ENIDC to improve funding for women-led and youth-led businesses and to strengthen the policy framework that supports gender-lens and social investing in Eswatini.

This intervention comprises the following:

Conducting market research studies to identify sectors and business areas where supporting women- and youth-led enterprises with financing holds good potential for sustainable industrial development
Developing policy reform proposals to improve the framework for women- and youth-led enterprises
Recommending tailor-made funding packages targeting women- and youth-led enterprises.

Overall, this ICR Facility intervention is providing ENIDC with the market insights, expertise, and competences to enable more accessible and well-targeted financing for these currently underserved segments of the population, as well as rallying allies to influence appropriate reforms that respond to the needs of these segments.

Results

There is an existing market failure where commercial banks are hesitant to invest in women and youth businesses and within some sectors due to perceived riskiness, lack of information, lack of capacity, etc. Through this intervention, ENIDC is working to close the financing gaps for value chains for women and youth MSMEs. The institution is looking to identify and prioritize certain key sectors to serve with financial and technical support to ultimately fulfil its industrialization mandate. The intervention is reinforcing ENIDC’s role as a development finance institution and its convening power to catalyze investments in the targeted sectors.