‘Access to finance a big challenge’

KARACHI: Access to finance remained a daunting task for Pakistani women entrepreneurs in setting up or expanding their businesses, a World Bank official said on Tuesday.

Addressing a conference on “Gender and Trade Closing the Gender Gap”, organised by the Pakistan Women Entrepreneurs Network for Trade, Zoubaida Allaoua, director finance, competitiveness and innovation of the World Bank Group, said that economic empowerment of women in Pakistan remained a big challenge.

She said financial inclusion of women could play a major role in closing gender gap in the country. Allaoua said that Pakistan needs to focus on basic services and opportunities to women. Gender issues are not good in Pakistan, as the country ranked 143rd of the 144 countries on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index in 2016.

The efforts of the country towards women’s economic participation and opportunity are also not encouraging, as it is higher only as compared to Syria on the same index, she added.

The World Bank director also lamented the lower participation of women in labour force in Pakistan. Pakistan’s women labour force rate is 22.2 percent, which is one of the lowest in the region, she added. However, she said, lower participation was because 65 percent women doctors and 85 percent business graduates could not continue after their marriages. The World Bank is working with the government to enable women have more access to the economy, she said, adding that women entrepreneurs are not aware of the economic opportunities.