世界银行-获得资本和妇女创业（英）

Policy Research Working Paper11232Access to Capital and Women’s EntrepreneurshipGirum AbebeRachel CassidyToni WeisInternational Finance Corporation &Gender Innovation Lab, Africa RegionOctober 2025 Public Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedProduced by the Research Support TeamAbstractThe Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.Policy Research Working Paper 11232This paper presents a systematic review of the literature that evaluates the causal impact of interventions designed to enhance women’s access to productive capital in low- and middle- income economies. The review identifies 27 studies that meet certain criteria, with wide geographic coverage. Overall, the evidence suggests that grants can spur entre-preneurship, but that such effects are mostly short-lived and not experienced by women operating subsistence businesses. For individual-liability loans, the evidence shows some pos-itive impacts—but only when credit products are designed to overcome flexibility needs and collateral constraints, and again often only for existing women entrepreneurs with higher baseline profits. The review also identifies an emerg-ing research frontier, focused on the use of alternative data for credit scoring and the development of novel credit prod-ucts facilitated by these data sources.This paper is a product of the International Finance Corporation and the Gender Innovation Lab, Africa Region. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at gtefera@ifc.org. Access to Capital and Women’s Entrepreneurship ∗Girum Abebe †Toni Weis §Rachel Cassidy ‡Gender, Entrepreneurship, Firms, Capital, Microfinance, Credit[JEL] C93, D14, D25, J16, L25, L26, O12∗This paper is a joint work between IFC’s Development Impact Measurement (CDI) and the World Bank’sAfrica Gender Innovation Lab, within the office of the Africa Region Chief Economist. We thank LucianaLuque Pereira Leite, Josefina Silva Montealba, and Uloma Ogba for excellent research assistance. Fundingfor this study was provided by Global Affairs Canada and the Gates Foundation under