This is the first of 7 issues of The Wave about outcomes from the OECD’s “Accelerating Women’s Entrepreneurship Forum” in Istanbul on June 5-7, co-chaired by Tsunami’s CEO. Six issues will address specific themes or regions, and the seventh will recommend a global action agenda.

This Wave addresses the related issues of Finance and Training. Our thanks to Lorraine Ruffing, rapporteur for both workshops, for her notes which enabled the writing of this Wave.

Access to Finance

Panelists discussed the need for policies and programs to address market failures that can make it difficult for women to obtain loans and/or equity capital. Five presentations concerned innovative programs that worked with suppliers of finance (banks, angels, venture capitalists), or demanders of capital (women entrepreneurs).

To solve supply-side problems, panelists recommended sensitizing providers of capital to women entrepreneurial needs, and training them in how to deal with this clientele. To facilitate access to capital, panelists felt that it was necessary to make women’s enterprises more “bankable” by decreasing the perceived risks to lenders and investors through training.

Two speakers (Ana Gomez-Plaza of FEMENP in Spain, and Leila Mokaddem of the African Development Bank, or ADB) stressed the importance of an integrated approach. To help women in both accessing finance and putting it to good use,

technical assistance and business development services (BDS) are necessary, and will decrease the perceived risks.

FEMENP, composed of 23 organizations with 7,000 members, provides financing, information and training, including business plan development.

As part of its financing programs, ADB stresses capacity building and networking among BDS providers, women entrepreneurs and their associations. ADB has worked with the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) WEDGE program to strengthen women entrepreneurial associations, and the ADB is monitoring the performance of women’s enterprises.

Amanda Ellis was the first Chair of the Global Banking Alliance for Women (GBAW)—an initiative of 5 banks in Australia, Canada, Ireland and the US—that grew out of a previous OECD conference. Member banks share best practices and sensitize and train bankers in how to service the women entrepreneurial market. She is now at the World Bank, where she hopes to leverage GBAW learnings to ensure that mainstream commercial financial institutions better meet women’s needs.

Two speakers addressed equity capital. Sue Preston, with the Kauffman Foundation in the US, spoke about financing from angels, seed funds, venture capitalists and corporate investors. To date, US women entrepreneurs receive only a small fraction of equity funding. She recommended forming “angel organizations” to educate women on becoming angel investors. (continued)