In This Issue
Spotlight on: Creating New Benchmarks
This month we’re proud to announce that our 2023 Summit will be hosted by Banco BHD, on November 8 and 9 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The Caribbean provides a beautiful backdrop to what will be a Summit of firsts: It will be our first Summit in Spanish-speaking Latin America, in the city where the first cathedral, the first hospital and the first university in the Americas were founded.
The Summit will also mark the launch of the first WE Finance Code outside of its birthplace in the United Kingdom. Our host Banco BHD will ably anchor this national WE Finance Code because just like NatWest in the UK, the bank has played a major role in supporting the women’s market for several years.
The bedrock of the WE Finance Code is committing to report data on volumes of financing to women-owned/led small and medium enterprises (WSMEs). The point of doing this is to drive action at the national level to create more supportive entrepreneurial ecosystems for WSMEs.
Concurrently, the Alliance is working with our colleagues at WE-FI to create a blueprint for replicating the Code in other countries. We will share this and many other exciting plans for galvanizing financing towards women SMEs at the Summit.
Last week we launched another key pillar of our data work, our annual Female Economy Analytics Survey (FEAS). This survey has become an industry benchmark for measuring the value of the female economy. The importance of this should not be underestimated. The survey provides us with the business case to persuade other commercial actors to serve the women’s market. And for each member reporting, it represents a cascade of internal actions to embed the program at their institutions. We encourage all our members to fill out this survey and provide a range of supports to enable this.
Also this month, we extend a warm welcome to our latest member, Karandaaz. This investor and think tank operates in Pakistan to accelerate financial access for the un-banked, including women, and enable SMEs. Please tune in to our video interview with CEO Waqas ul Hasan who shares his vision for achieving full financial inclusion of women in Pakistan.
We thank all our members for their extraordinary generosity in the many ways they participate in the Alliance and very much look forward to seeing you at the 2023 Summit.
In community,
